“As a man who is betrothed?” The doctor smiled grimly. “I have known many prostitutes. I hasten to add: in pursuance of my own profession, not theirs. And I wish I had a guinea for every one I have heard gloat over the fact that a majority of their victims are husbands and fathers.” He stared into the fire, into his past. “ ‘I am cast out. But I shall be revenged.’”

“You make her sound like a fiend—she is not so.” He had spoken too vehemently, and turned quickly away. “I cannot believe this of her.”

“That, if you will permit a man old enough to be your father to say so, is because you are half in love with her.”

Charles spun round and stared at the doctor’s bland face.

“I do not permit you to say that.” Grogan bowed his head. In the silence, Charles added, “It is highly insulting to Miss Freeman.”

“It is indeed. But who is making the insult?”

Charles swallowed. He could not bear these quizzical eyes, and he started down the long, narrow room as if to go. But before he could reach the door, Grogan had him by the arm and made him turn, and seized the other arm—and he was fierce, a terrier at Charles’s dignity.

“Man, man, are we not both believers in science? Do we not both hold that truth is the one great principle? What did Socrates die for? A keeping social face? A homage to decorum? Do you think in my forty years as a doctor I have not learned to tell when a man is in distress? And because he is hiding the truth from himself? Know thyself, Smithson, know thyself!”

The mixture of ancient Greek and Gaelic fire in Grogan’s soul seared Charles. He stood staring down at the doctor, then looked aside, and returned to the fireside, his back to his tormentor. There was a long silence. Grogan watched him intently.

At last Charles spoke.

“I am not made for marriage. My misfortune is to have realized it too late.”

“Have you read Malthus?” Charles shook his head. “For him the tragedy of Homo sapiens is that the least fit to survive breed the most. So don’t say you aren’t made for marriage, my boy. And don’t blame yourself for falling for that girl. I think I know why that French sailor ran away. He knew she had eyes a man could drown in.”

Charles swiveled round in agony. “On my most sacred honor, nothing improper has passed between us. You must believe that.”

“I believe you. But let me put you through the old catechism. Do you wish to hear her? Do you wish to see her? Do you wish to touch her?”

Charles turned away again and sank into the chair, his face in his hands. It was no answer, yet it said everything. After a moment, he raised his face and stared into the fire.

“Oh my dear Grogan, if you knew the mess my life was in… the waste of it… the uselessness of it. I have no moral purpose, no real sense of duty to anything. It seems only a few months ago that I was twenty-one—full of hopes…all disappointed. And now to get entangled in this miserable business…”

Grogan moved beside him and gripped his shoulder. “You are not the first man to doubt his choice of bride.” “She understands so little of what I really am.” “She is—what?—a dozen years younger than yourself? And she has known you not six months. How could she understand you as yet? She is hardly out of the schoolroom.”

Charles nodded gloomily. He could not tell the doctor his real conviction about Ernestina: that she would never understand him. He felt fatally disabused of his own intelligence. It had let him down in his choice of a life partner; for like so many Victorian, and perhaps more recent, men Charles was to live all his life under the influence of the ideal. There are some men who are consoled by the idea that there are women less attractive than their wives; and others who are haunted by the knowledge that there are more attractive. Charles now saw only too well which category he belonged to. He murmured, “It is not her fault. It cannot be.”

“I should think not. A pretty young innocent girl like that.”

“I shall honor my vows to her.”

“Of course.”

A silence.

“Tell me what to do.”

“First tell me your real sentiments as regards the other.”

Charles looked up in despair; then down to the fire, and tried at last to tell the truth.

“I cannot say, Grogan. In all that relates to her, I am an enigma to myself. I do not love her. How could I? A woman so compromised, a woman you tell me is mentally diseased. But… it is as if… I feel like a man possessed against his will—against all that is better in his character. Even now her face rises before me, denying all you say. There is something in her. A knowledge, an apprehension of nobler things than are compatible with either evil or madness. Beneath the dross… I cannot explain.”

“I did not lay evil at her door. But despair.”

No sound, but a floorboard or two that creaked as the doctor paced. At last Charles spoke again.

“What do you advise?”

“That you leave matters entirely in my hands.”

“You will go to see her?”

“I shall put on my walking boots. I shall tell her you have been unexpectedly called away. And you must go away, Smithson.”

“It so happens I have urgent business in London.”

“So much the better. And I suggest that before you go you lay the whole matter before Miss Freeman.”

“I had already decided upon that.” Charles got to his feet. But still that face rose before him. “And she—what will you do?”

“Much depends upon her state of mind. It may well be that all that keeps her sane at the present juncture is her belief that you feel sympathy—perhaps something sweeter—for her. The shock of your not appearing may, I fear, produce a graver melancholia. I am afraid we must anticipate that.” Charles looked down. “You are not to blame that upon yourself. If it had not been you, it would have been some other. In a way, such a state of affairs will make things easier. I shall know what course to take.”

Charles stared at the carpet. “An asylum.”

“That colleague I mentioned—he shares my views on the treatment of such cases. We shall do our best. You would be prepared for a certain amount of expense?”

“Anything to be rid of her—without harm to her.”

“I know a private asylum in Exeter. My friend Spencer has patients there. It is conducted in an intelligent and enlightened manner. I should not recommend a public institution at this stage.”

“Heaven forbid. I have heard terrible accounts of them.”

“Rest assured. This place is a model of its kind.”

“We are not talking of committal?”

For there had arisen in Charles’s mind a little ghost of treachery: to discuss her so clinically, to think of her locked in some small room…

“Not at all. We are talking of a place where her spiritual wounds can heal, where she will be kindly treated, kept occupied—and will have the benefit of Spencer’s excellent experience and care. He has had similar cases. He knows what to do.”

Charles hesitated, then stood and held out his hand. In his present state he needed orders and prescriptions, and as soon as he had them, he felt better.

“I feel you have saved my life.”

“Nonsense, my dear fellow.”

“No, it is not nonsense. I shall be in debt to you for the rest of my days.”

“Then let me inscribe the name of your bride on the bill of credit.”

“I shall honor the debt.”

“And give the charming creature time. The best wines take the longest to mature, do they not?”

“I fear that in my own case the same is true of a very inferior vintage.”

“Bah. Poppycock.” The doctor clapped him on the shoulder. “And by the bye, I think you read French?”

Charles gave a surprised assent. Grogan sought through his shelves, found a book, and then marked a passage in it with a pencil before passing it to his guest.

“You need not read the whole trial. But I should like you to read this medical evidence that was brought by the defense.”