he
information Gwen had given him. He might have seen it before, had he
heard of the gipsy's mistake, but Ruth Thrale had never mentioned this.
He remembered, too, in Gwen's story, some slight reference to a son of
Mrs. Prichard who was a _mauvais sujet_. He determined on a daring
_coup_. "Are you sure Mrs. Prichard is not the mother he was looking
for?" said he.

Granny Marrable was struck with his cleverness. "Now, how _ever_ did you
come to find _that_ out, doctor?" said she.

"We're a clever lot, us doctors! We've got to be clever.... Let's see,
now--where are we? Mrs. Prichard has a son who is called by your
brother-in-law's name, but who is _not_ your sister's son. Because if he
were, Mrs. Prichard would be your sister. Which is impossible. But Mrs.
Prichard has got muddled about her own identity, and thinks she is. What
can we do to cure such a delusion? I've seen a great deal of this sort
of thing--I've had charge of lunatics--and the only thing I know of for
the case is to stimulate memory of the patient's actual past life. But
we know nothing about Mrs. Prichard. Who the dickens _is_ Mrs.
Prichard?"

Granny Marrable had looked really pleased at the _reductio ad
absurdum_--always exhilarating when one knows what's impossible--but
looked perplexed over Mrs. Prichard's real identity. "No, indeed, poor
dear soul!" she said. "'Tisn't as if there was any would tell us about
her."

"I have found, and so has your daughter, that she goes back and back in
these dreams of her own childhood, which no doubt are made up of ...
which no doubt may have been told her by ..." He stopped intentionally.
He wanted to stagger her immobility by making her recite the nonsense
about Mrs. Prichard's informants.

She was quite amenable. "By little Davy," said she contentedly.

"And what she had from your sister in Australia, years ago," said the
doctor, and saw her content waver. He had his clue, and resolved to act
on it. "For instance, Mr. Muggeridge's gallivantings. You're sure you
never told the child?"

"Sure?... Merciful gracious me! _That_ baby?"

"And how you and she measured the mill-model? That _must_ have come from
your sister."

She started. "What was that?" she said. "You never told me."

He did not look at her--only at his watch. He really had to be off, he
said, but would tell her about the measurements. Thought she knew it
before. He went on to narrate the incident referred to, which is already
familiar to