“Sir Everard,” the doctor began, “this return of Lady Dominey’s has taken me altogether by surprise.  I had intended to-morrow morning to discuss the situation with you.”

“I am most anxious to hear your report,” Dominey said.

“My report is good,” was the confident answer.  “Although I would not have allowed her to have left the nursing home so suddenly had I known, there was nothing to keep her there.  Lady Dominey, except for one hallucination, is in perfect health, mentally and physically.”

“And this one hallucination?”

“That you are not her husband.”

Dominey was silent for a moment.  Then he laughed a little unnaturally.

“Can a person be perfectly sane,” he asked, “and yet be subject to an hallucination which must make the whole of her surroundings seem unreal?”

“Lady Dominey is perfectly sane,” the doctor answered bluntly, “and as for that hallucination, it is up to you to dispel it.”

“Perhaps you can give me some advice?” Dominey suggested.

“I can, and I am going to be perfectly frank with you,” the doctor replied.  “To begin with then, there are certain obvious changes in you which might well minister to Lady Dominey’s hallucination.  For instance, you have been in England now some eight months, during which time you have reveled an entirely new personality.  You seem to have got rid of every one of your bad habits, you drink moderately, as a gentleman should, you have subdued your violent temper, and you have collected around you, where your personality could be the only inducement, friends of distinction and interest.  This is not at all what one expected from the Everard Dominey who scuttled out of England a dozen years ago.”

“You are excusing my wife,” Dominey remarked.

“She needs no excuses,” was the brusque reply.  “She has been a long-enduring and faithful woman, suffering from a cruel illness, brought on, to take the kindest view if it, through your clumsiness and lack of discretion.  Like all good women, forgiveness is second nature to her.  It has now become her wish to take her proper place in life.”

“But if her hallucination continues,” Dominey asked, “if she seriously doubts that I am indeed her husband, how can she do that?”

“That is the problem you and I have to face,” the doctor said sternly.  “The fact that your wife has been willing to return here to you, whilst still subject to that hallucination, is a view of the matter which I can neither discuss nor understand.  I am here to-night, though, to lay a charge upon you.  You have to remember that your wife needs still one step towards a perfect recovery, and until that step has been surmounted you have a very difficult but imperative task.”

Dominey set his teeth for a moment.  He felt the doctor’s keen grey eyes glowing from under his shaggy eyebrows as he leaned forward, his hands upon his knees.