"Certainly. Mrs. Sykes is part of the cure."
"And the other part?"
"Oh—just everything. I hardly know why I like the place. But I do. Why analyse? I can sleep here. I wake in the morning like a man with the right to live, and for the first time in a year, Willits, a long torturing year, I am beginning to feel free of that oppression, that haunting sense that somewhere Molly is alive, that she needs me and that I cannot get to her. I had begun to fear that it would drive me mad. But, here, it is going. Yesterday I was walking down a country road and suddenly I felt free—exquisitely, gloriously free—the past wiped out! That—that was why I almost feared to see you, Elliott, you bring the past so close."
The hands of the friends met in a firm handclasp.
"Have it your own way," said the professor, smiling his grim smile.
"Consider me silenced."
The doctor's answer was cut off by the jingling entrance of Mrs. Sykes bearing before her a large tray upon which stood tall glasses, a beaded pitcher of ice cold lemonade and some cake with white frosting.
"Seeing as it's so hot," said she amiably, "I thought a cold drink might cool you off some. Especially as breakfast will be five minutes late owing to the chicken. I thought maybe as you had a friend, doctor, a chicken—"
"A chicken will be delicious," said the doctor, answering the question in her voice. "Mrs. Sykes, let me present Professor Willits; Willits, Mrs. Sykes! Let me take the tray."
Mrs. Sykes shook hands cordially. "Land sakes!" she said. "I thought you were a priest! Not that I really suspicioned that the doctor, good Presbyterian as he is, would know any such. But priests is terrible wily. They deceive the very elect—and it's best to be prepared. As it is, any friend of the doctor's is a friend of mine. You're kindly welcome, I'm sure."
"Thank you," said the professor limply.