"Please don't repeat this," he remarked, as we were leaving. "You can readily understand the reason. I quite appreciate the uncomfortable position in which the city detectives have placed you, Mrs. Wilford. Depend on me, I shall use every influence I have with them to mitigate the hardship of their presence. Besides, I know how brutally annoying they can be. You understand—my position is quite different. And if I can be of any assistance to you, no matter in what way, don't fail to command me."
I had expected her to be a bit put out by our continued quizzing. On the contrary, however, she seemed to be actually grateful for Kennedy's sympathy, now that he had ceased treading upon dangerous ground.
"Thank you," she sighed, as we rose to leave her. "I feel that you are always trying to be fair to me."
Kennedy hastened to assure her that we were, and we left before the final good impression could be destroyed.
"I consider you an artist, Craig," I complimented, as we left the elevator a few minutes later, after a brief talk with McCabe in which Kennedy urged him to keep a close watch, but to seem not to be watching. "We go to cross-examine; we leave, friends. But I don't yet understand what the idea was of trying the association test on her."
"Couldn't you see that when we came there she was in a state verging on hysteria?" he replied. "No doubt, if McCabe had stayed she would have been quite over the verge, too. But it would not have done them any good. They always think that if any one 'blows up,' as they call it, they'll learn the truth. That's not the case with a woman as clever as Honora. If she gave way to hysteria, she would be infinitely more likely to mislead them than to lead them. Besides, in the study of hysteria a good deal of what we used to think and practise is out of date now."
I nodded encouragingly, not so much that I cared about the subject of hysteria, either what was known of it now or long ago, as that I was deeply interested in anything whatever that might advance the case.
"Perhaps," he went on, "you are not aware of the fact that Freud's contribution to the study of hysteria and even to insanity is really of greater scientific value than his theories of dreams, taken by themselves. Study of Freud, as you can see, has led us already to a better understanding of this very case."
"But what sort of condition did you think her in before you reassured her at the start by the association test?"
Kennedy thought a moment. "Here is, I feel, what is known as one of the so-called 'borderline cases,'" he answered, slowly. "It is clearly a case of hysteria—not the hysteria one hears spoken of commonly as such, but the condition which scientists to-day know as such.