"Poor Mother! I see now that she thought she was doing her utmost for me."
Soon after, a happier species of news came from Peter.
Peter had qualified smartly and accepted a hard-worked job in a mental institution, which had offered him scant opportunity for leisurely experiment and involved very considerable strain on nerves already somewhat stretched by exams.
That old friend of the Carmichaels, Colonel Maddock, had now made him the unique offer of a free trip on his yacht which, he declared, had, like himself, entered on a very new lease of life. He was determined as a "Last Kick" to sail it again in Eastern waters, and required the attendance of a qualified medical man on this somewhat, at his age, hazardous undertaking. Peter, he pointed out, would be none the worse for a sea-trip, combining business with pleasure, and he would be able to find time for a certain amount of useful reading.
Peter gave details of their tour, adding that he was not sorry to get the chance of inquiring into the methods by which lunacy was treated in the East, and, also, that he was beginning to be "rather keen" on leprosy, the most common disease ever cured by psychical, or "miraculous," powers of old. He studiously refrained from mentioning Cyprian but, from the fact that his letter came direct to Ferlie, it would appear that Aunt B. had entrusted him with some sort of outline of the true facts.
"He was always rather a delightful person," said Ferlie, "But I am not sure that, in his present phase, he is likely to be particularly sympathetic."
"Peter! Why, I always imagined him at the head of the newest Communistic Party: his hand against every settled law of man or nature, from birth and vaccination to death and burial."
"That was Peter at twenty, seeking the freedom of the Universe. Peter at twenty-five, is a martinet for the regulations of taxes by Cæsar and of emotions by the Church through the Seven Sacraments."
"Never heard of them!"
"That is your loss, Cyprian," Ferlie assured him.