“There can be no question of a partnership between us.”

“You refuse to help?”

“My help isn’t worth a snap of the fingers.  I have done all I can for her physically.  She is a perfectly sound woman.  The rest depends upon you, and you alone, and I am not very hopeful about it.”

“Upon me?” Dominey repeated, a little taken aback.

“Fidelity,” the doctor grunted, “is second nature with all good women.  Lady Dominey is a good woman, and she is no exception to the rule.  Her brain is starved because her heart is aching for love.  If she could believe in your repentance and reform, if any atonement for the past were possible and were generously offered, I cannot tell what the result might be.  They tell me that you are a rich man now, although heaven knows, when one considers what a lazy, selfish fellow you were, that sounds like a miracle.  You could have the great specialists down.  They couldn’t help, but it might salve your conscience to pay them a few hundred guineas.”

“Would you meet them?” Dominey asked anxiously.  “Tell me whom to send for?”

“Pooh!  Those days are finished with me,” was the curt reply.  “I would meet none of them.  I am a doctor no longer.  I have become a villager.  I go to see Lady Dominey as an old friend.”

“Give me your advice,” Dominey begged.  “Is it of any use sending for specialists?”

“Just for the present, none at all.”

“And what about that horrible woman, Mrs. Unthank?”

“Part of your task, if you are really going to take it up.  She stands between your wife and the sun.”

“Then why have you suffered her to remain there all those years?” Dominey demanded.

“For one thing, because there has been no one to replace her,” the doctor replied, “and for another, because Lady Dominey, believing that you slew her son, has some fantastic idea of giving her a home and shelter as a kind of expiation.”

“You think there is no affection between the two?” Dominey asked.

“Not a scrap,” was the blunt reply, “except that Lady Dominey is of so sweet and gentle a nature—­”

The doctor paused abruptly.  His visitor’s fingers had strayed across his throat.

“That’s a different matter,” the former continued fiercely.  “That’s just where the weak spot in her brain remains.  If you ask me, I believe it’s pandered to by Mrs. Unthank.  Come to think of it,” he went on, “the Domineys were never cowards.  If you’ve got your courage back, send Mrs. Unthank away, sleep with your doors wide open.  If a single night passes without Lady Dominey coming to your room with a knife in her hand, she will be cured in time of that mania at any rate.  Dare you do that?”

Dominey’s hesitation was palpable,—­also his agitation.  The doctor grinned contemptuously.

“Still afraid!” he scoffed.

“Not in the way you imagine,” his visitor replied.  “My wife has already promised to make no further attempt upon my life.”