[CHAPTER XVII]
HUSBAND AND WIFE
"I have come for my wife. I am Stephen Waller."
Those words were simple enough but Dr. Harper seemed to find them most confusing. He wagged his venerable beard like an angry goat and said nothing at first, but like a goat he looked as though he might be gathering his forces for a mighty butting.
"I don't know what you mean. I know nothing of your wife."
"Nothing of a Mrs. Waller who has been in your sanitarium for a year or more?"
"Nothing!"
"See here! I am not going to stand any foolishness. Do you mean to say you have not a patient named Mrs. Waller?"
"I do not! I have such a patient but she is a widow and I am sure she knows nothing of you. How am I to know who you are?" asked Harper.
"You can get out of here faster than you got in. I have plenty of men here who can put you out and none too gently. Mrs. Waller was put in my care by a Mr. Chester and he, and he alone, has the authority to remove her from my sanitarium."
Josie had slipped up to Mrs. Waller's room when she left Captain Waller at the door and there, as gently and with as much composure as she could command, she told her of her husband.