Why, if you really were the Dr Ferguson whose part you play so
admirably you could scarcely spend a more active life.'

'All you mean, Sheila, I suppose, is that I have failed.'

'"Failed" did not enter my mind. I thought, looking at you just
now in your clothes on the bed, one might for the moment be
deceived into thinking there was a slight--quite the slightest
improvement. There was not quite that'--she hovered for the right
word--'that tenseness. Whether or not, whether you desired any
such change or didn't, I should have supposed in any case it
would have been better to act as far as possible like any
ordinary person. You were certainly in an extraordinarily sound
sleep. I was almost alarmed; until I remembered that it was a
little after two when I looked up from reading aloud to keep
myself awake and discovered that you had only just come home. I
had no fire. You know how easily late hours bring on my
headaches; a little thought might possibly have suggested that I
should be anxious to hear. But no; it seems I cannot profit by
experience, Arthur. And even now you have not answered surely a
very natural question. You do not recollect, perhaps, exactly
what did happen last night? Did you go in the direction even of
Widderstone?'

'Yes, Sheila, I went to Widderstone.'

'It was of course absurd to suppose that sitting on a seat beside
the broken-down grave of a suicide would have the slightest
effect on one's--one's physical condition; though possibly it
might affect one's brain. It would mine; I am at least certain of