"Excuse me, Mr. Graham; but if you wish to take issue with me as to your wife's condition, I will have to insist on the request in my letter of yesterday—that you remove her at once," the physician said with decision.
"I do not desire to do that," Graham replied; "but I cannot understand what has happened here to change her prospects of recovery, of which you were so confident when you admitted her. Besides that I do not see why you forbid me to communicate with her. She is certa—"
"Wait a moment, Mr. Graham. You must understand that in our prejudgment of these cases we do not arrogate to ourselves infallibility; but that in our treatment of them we do demand for ourselves absolute authority to say what shall and what shall not be done, and the very strictest obedience to that. This is a very peculiar case. It has one element that is altogether unique. Never before have I met it in my practice or seen it in the books. I am doing the best I can with it, and if you do not de—"
"That is not it, doctor. I have no suggestions to make to you as to the proper treatment, nor any objection, indeed, to complying with any reasonable restriction; but when you say that I shall not see or communicate with my wife at any time, it seems unreasonable. Does she have no lucid intervals in which I might see her? Does she never think or speak of me—never write to me?"
"Yes, Mr. Graham, she has lucid intervals. She speaks of you at times, oftentimes. And she writes to you occasionally, but I have decided that it would not—"
"Has written to me? And you have not sent me the letters? Surely, surely, doctor, I am not crazy, that you should withhold letters from me! Have you the letters? Has she written often?"
"She has written often; but only on two occasions was there anything except disjointed sentences. She—"
"And when was that? And where are the letters?"
"I have them," replied the doctor, "but I do not think that—"
"I demand to see them, sir! I'm not in your hospital for treatment!"