"There shall be no more children."
"As you like it. I don't advise it. Those books take it out of her more."
He lowered his voice.
"I consider her last book responsible for that child's delicacy."
Brodrick flinched visibly at that.
"I don't care," the Doctor went on, "what Prothero and Tanqueray say. They can't know. They don't see her. No more do you. You're out all day. I shouldn't know myself if Gertrude Collett hadn't told me."
"Oh—Gertrude Collett."
"Nobody more likely to know. She's on the spot, watching her from hour to hour."
"What did she tell you?"
"Why—that she works up-stairs, in her room—for hours—when she's supposed to be lying down. She's doing it now probably."