“I don’t remember much after I was hit,” said Peter, and shied off the subject.
“But were you unconscious all the way to England?”
“I suppose so.”
Conversation languished for a moment. Then Peter edged his chair towards his father-in-law’s; began to talk medicine. Peter opened very carefully, feeling his way with each sentence towards the topic which for the moment obsessed him: but it did not take the doctor’s astute mind very long to realize that he was being pumped for information. And the information his son-in-law sought was all about one subject—tubercle. “At what age were people most liable to consumption?” “How did it start?” “Was it hereditary?” “How long did it take to kill a man?” “Could it be cured?” . . .
“Now why on earth,” thought Heron Baynet, “does a man who is obviously suffering from repressed shell-shock, want to know about tubercle?” And that night he sat up very late, peering into the flames of the wood-fire in his bed-room, seeing visions of this new science, the science of neurology, by which men who had learned how to die might be taught how to live.
§ 3
Heron Baynet had planned his return to London for Boxing Day; but he cancelled his appointments by wire, and stayed on at Sunflowers. He felt his daughter’s happiness to be staked on a correct diagnosis of her husband’s mental condition; and as Peter’s reserve made direct methods impossible, the diagnosis necessitated vigilance and unceasing study.
After two days spent apparently in idleness, actually in the most minute observation, the doctor succeeded in decoying his daughter away from home, husband and children; suggested a little stroll through Arlsfield Woods.
It was a dull December afternoon; and as they took the footpath across the paddock, picked their way under leafless branches over slippery tree-roots, Patricia could not help contrasting this winter sombreness with the splendid springtime when she and Francis had first found Sunflowers. Then, the world had been one great promise; now, the world and her own hope seemed withered, never to blossom again. . . .