About this time there happened an event which struck strongly upon the doctor’s mind.  He was one day, as usual, in his consulting-room, receiving a multitude of patients, when his man-servant entered with a card on a salver.

“A lady, sir, who wishes to see you.  She has no appointment.”

The doctor took the card.  On it was printed merely “Mrs. Wilson.”

“I cannot see the lady to-day,” he said, “unless she can call again after five o’clock.  But I can see her then, or to-morrow morning at ten.  Ask her which she would prefer.”

After a moment’s absence Lawler returned.

“The lady will come at five o’clock this evening, sir.”

“Very well.”

And the doctor bent his mind once more steadily upon his work.

At five o’clock the door opened, and a tall, square, and strong-looking woman, dressed in black, walked quietly into the room.  She bowed to the doctor and sat down.

“I am glad you could see me to-day,” she said.  “I leave London early to-morrow morning.  I hate London.”

She spoke in a full and rather rich voice, with a slightly burring accent, and looked the doctor full in the face with a pair of large and sensible grey eyes.  Nature had certainly built her to be one of those towers of women, strong for themselves, for their sex, and often for men also, who possess a peculiar power, given in quite full measure to no male creature, of large sympathy and lofty composure.  But the doctor saw at a glance that some adverse fate had disagreed with the intentions of nature, and fought against them with success.  Circumstances must have arisen in this woman’s life to break down her unusual equipment of courage and resolution, or if not to break it down, to dint and batter the shield she carried over her heart and life.  For her fine face was lined with care, her naturally firm mouth was tormented by an apparently irresistible quivering, that, once prompted by long and painful emotion, had now become habitual and mechanical, and her eyes, although they met the eyes of the doctor with a peculiar large reception and return of scrutiny, held in their depths that hunted expression which is only developed by long agony, either physical or mental.  So much the doctor read in a glance before his patient began to detail her symptoms.  She detailed them with a certain obvious shame and a slow conquering of reticence that made her speak very deliberately.

She began by saying, in no insulting manner, that she had kept clear of doctors during almost the whole of her life; that she had meant to keep clear of them till her death.

“For I was born with a constitution of iron,” she said, “and I have always lived on the most sanitary principles, and with the utmost simplicity.  So I hoped to go to my grave without much suffering.  Certainly I never expected to have to consult any one on the ground of nervous breakdown.  Yet that is exactly why I am here with you at this moment.  The circumstances of my life have been too much for me, I suppose.”