He stood a moment without answering, then quietly seated himself. The
suspicious glimmer in his faded eyes had become the concentration of a
curiosity almost apprehensive.

"Go on," he said; "what else?"

"What do you mean?"

"You have been saying several things--about doctors whom I have set to
watch you--for a year or more."

"Do you deny it?" she retorted angrily.

"No--no, I do not deny anything. But--who are these doctors--whom you
have noticed?"

"I don't know who they are," she replied impatiently. "I've seen them
often enough--following me on the street, or in public places--watching
me. They are everywhere--you have them well paid, evidently; I suppose
you can afford it. But you are wasting your time."

"You think so?"

"Yes!" she cried in a sudden violence that startled him, "you are
wasting your time! And so am I--talking to you--enduring your personal
affronts and brutal sneers. Sufficient for you that I know my enemies,
and that I am saner, thank God, than any of them!" She flashed a look of
sudden fury at him, and rose from her chair. He also rose with a
promptness that bordered on precipitation.

"For the remainder of the spring and summer," she said, "I shall make my
plans regardless of you. I shall not go to Newport; you are at liberty
to use the house there as you choose. And as for this incident with
Gerald, you had better not pursue it any further. Do you understand?"

He nodded, dropping his hands into his coat-pockets.

"Now you may go," she said coolly.

He went--not, however, to his room, but straight to the house of the
fashionable physician who ministered to wealth with an unction and
success that had permitted him, in summer time, to occupy his own villa
at Newport and dispense further ministrations when requested.

* * * * *

On the night of the conjugal conference between Nina Gerard and her
husband--and almost at the same hour--Jack Ruthven, hard hit in the
card-room of the Stuyvesant Club, sat huddled over the table, figuring
up what sort of checks he was to draw to the credit of George Fane and
Sanxon Orchil.

Matters had been going steadily against him for some time--almost
everything, in fact, except the opinions of several physicians in a
matter concerning his wife. For, in that scene between them in early
spring, his wife had put that into his head which had never before been
there--suspicion of her mental soundness.

And now, as