Dr. Mainwaring was the first to arrive. He was a man of supreme refinement, gentle, compassionate, an artist by talent and temperament, intellectual to the tips of his fingers. He had made insanity and the care of the insane the work of his life, as his father and grandfather had done before him, and he enjoyed the privilege of having been born in an age of enlightenment, which they had not even foreseen in their happiest anticipations. He had met Lord Cheriton often in London society, and had visited him in the country, and they were as close friends as two busy men of the world can be.
He was mystified by so sudden a summons and to such a locality; but he had too much tact to betray any surprise. He listened quietly to Lord Cheriton’s explanation that he was wanted to form an opinion of a dependent whose state of mind had given cause for uneasiness.
“I will say very little about her till you have seen her,” said Cheriton. “If it should appear to you and to my friend Wilmot, whom I have asked to meet you,—if you should decide that she ought to be placed under restraint, I should wish her to be removed immediately to your house at Cheshunt. I know that she will be made as happy there as her state of mind will admit, and I shall rely upon your kind consideration for making this a special case.”
“You may be assured I shall do my uttermost for any one in whom you are interested, my dear Cheriton, but indeed I think you must know that I do my uttermost in every case. It is only in some small details that I can ever show special attention. Is this poor lady very violent?”
“No, she is very quiet.”
“And there is no suicidal mania, I hope?”
“I have seen no evidence of it; but she left her home in a strange and motiveless manner this morning, and that, coupled with other indications in the past, gave me the alarm.”
“Has she any delusions?”
“Yes, it was under a delusion that she came to this empty house. She lived here many years ago, and on talking to her just now I found her unconscious of the lapse of time, and fancying that all things were still as they were when she was a young woman.”
“Has she had any illness lately?”