“That is the condition Mrs. Cranston might have got into if she had not come to us when she did,” he said.  “As it is, she is never violent and is one of the most tractable patients we have.”

We left shortly, without finding out whether Doctor Burr suspected us of anything or not.  As we made our way back to the city, I could not help the feeling of depression such as Poe mentioned at seeing the private madhouse in France.

“That glimpse we had into the other room almost makes one recall the soothing system of Doctor Maillard.  Is Doctor Burr’s system better?” I asked.

“A good deal of what we used to think and practise is out of date now,” returned Kennedy.  “I think you are already familiar with the theory of dreams that has been developed by Dr. Sigmund Freud, of Vienna.  But perhaps you are not aware of the fact that Freud’s contribution to the study of insanity is of even greater scientific value than his dream theories taken by themselves.

“Hers, I feel sure now, is what is known as one of the so-called ‘border-line cases,’” he continued.  “It is clearly a case of hysteria—­not the hysteria one hears spoken of commonly, but the condition which scientists know as such.  We trace the impulses from which hysterical conditions arise, penetrate the disguises which these repressed impulses or wishes must assume in order to appear in the consciousness.  Such transformed impulses are found in normal people, too, sometimes.  The hysteric suffers mostly from reminiscences which, paradoxically, may be completely forgotten.

“Obsessions and phobias have their origin, according to Freud, in sexual life.  The obsession represents a compensation or substitute for an unbearable sexual idea and takes its place in consciousness.  In normal sexual life, no neurosis is possible, say the Freudists.  Sex is the strongest impulse, yet subject to the greatest repression, and hence the weakest point of our cultural development.  Hysteria arises through the conflict between libido and sex-repression.  Often sex-wishes may be consciously rejected but unconsciously accepted.  So when they are understood every insane utterance has a reason.  There is really method in madness.

“When hysteria in a wife gains her the attention of an otherwise inattentive husband it fills, from the standpoint of her deeper longing, an important place, and, in a sense, may be said to be desirable.  The great point about the psychanalytic method, as discovered by Breuer and Freud, is that certain symptoms of hysteria disappear when the hidden causes are brought to light and the repressed desires are gratified.”

“How does that apply to Mrs. Cranston?” I queried.

“Mrs. Cranston,” he replied, “is suffering from what the psychanalysts call a psychic trauma—­a soul-wound, as it were.  It is the neglect, in this case, of her husband, whom she deeply loves.  That, in itself, is sufficient to explain her experience wandering through the country.  It was the region which she associated with her first love-affair, as she told us.  The wave of recollection that swept over her engulfed her mind.  In other words, reason could no longer dominate the cravings for a love so long suppressed.  Then, when she saw, or imagined she saw, one who looked like her lover the strain was too great.”