“Ah! then you have agreed to the engagement?” asked Hayden quickly.
“Yes,” reluctantly. “Frankly, doctor, Evelyn’s condition this morning worried me, and I thought the best thing to do was to accede as far as possible to her wishes. It quieted her and she spent the remainder of the night without seeing visions.”
“Visions!” exclaimed the astonished physician.
“Yes,” tartly. “I was awakened by a whistling noise which seemed to come from Evelyn’s room, and on going in I found her sitting up in bed, apparently frightened half out of her senses and declaring that she saw against the opposite wall the unidentified dead man, sitting in the chair as she had found him in the library on Tuesday afternoon.”
“Upon my word!” Hayden stared at Mrs. Burnham; she was certainly serious in her statement. Was the entire Burnham household going mad, or was his hearing defective?
“Evelyn seldom speaks of the scene in the library,” went on Mrs. Burnham. “But finding the body must have made a greater impression upon her than any of us realized. She was very much wrought up to a feverish degree. Mrs. Ward told me this morning, by an interview she had with me about René La Montagne just before going to bed, and I am afraid her mind must have reverted back to the dead man and her mental distress projected her vision of him on the wall,” ended Mrs. Burnham. “Isn’t that what you physicians call it?”
Hayden looked puzzled. “An illusion—counterfeit appearances,” he explained, “is an incorrect impression of the senses. Has Evelyn ever had other illusions?”
“Never to my knowledge.” Mrs. Burnham rose. “I have left her in bed in Mrs. Ward’s care. I wish you would come in sometime during the day doctor, and see her. In the meantime, I can’t thank you enough——” Mrs. Burnham’s fine eyes filled with tears and she stopped unable to control her voice.
“My dear Mrs. Burnham,” Hayden shook her hand warmly. “Say no more; I am only too delighted to be of service to you; you forget, but I do not, your long years of kindness and hospitality to me.”
Taking her knitting bag from the sofa where she had dropped it, Mrs. Burnham started for the door, and Hayden, snatching up his surgical bag and hat, accompanied her out of the apartment and down in the elevator.