Ella did not speak.
"If you will allow me, Miss Winter, I will take the case as stated in your own words. You say that for some months before Mr. Denison died he was immured away from everyone except three or four people, and kept, as it were, under lock and key. Granted; but it was done entirely at his own request. You perhaps remember something of that queer crotchet he had in his head that the precincts of the Hall, and even the Hall itself, were haunted by spies set on to watch him by certain people--his relatives, I believe, but of that I know little. This notion seemed to take fuller hold of him as his birthday drew nearer. He insisted on having his rooms shut in from the rest of the house; he decreed that only a very few individuals, those whom he could implicitly trust, should have access to him. None of the ordinary servants were to go near him; for aught he knew, he would declare, they might be spies. It was an hallucination I combated as far as I was able; but contradiction, especially on this point, only irritated him. More than once it brought on one of his fits of passion, and so undid, or partially undid, the good I was striving to do him in other ways."
This was quite feasible, probably true, and Miss Winter bowed her head in acquiescence. The Doctor resumed.
"As regards Mr. Denison's old friends being denied access to him, I must take on myself a certain measure of blame for what may seem a somewhat arbitrary proceeding. From the first I gave Mr. Denison to understand that if he adopted my mode of treatment, perfect quiet and seclusion were essential to its success, and he agreed with me without the slightest demur. But I did not at first deny him the sight of friends: it was only after the visits of some of them, when I saw how much it excited him, that I was obliged to do so. I begged him to allow his rooms to be closed to all visitors: had he admitted one he must have admitted others: I showed him how essential it was that he should be kept strictly, perfectly quiet; and he agreed. He would agree to anything, he said, if I could only succeed in keeping him alive over his seventieth birthday; and I certainly did succeed in doing that."
"Did he require the services of a nurse?"
"Undoubtedly."
"And was it necessary that she should be a stranger?"
"In my opinion he ought to have been supplied with a properly trained nurse long before I sent for one. An old woman, had in haphazard from the neighbourhood, would have been useless. No one, except we medical men and those invalids who have tried them, know how invaluable is a really qualified nurse in a sick-room."
"I believe that," said Ella, hastily. "But--why was it that the fact of this nurse having been at Heron Dyke was never mentioned to me? Neither in the letters I received from home, nor when I returned to it, close upon the departure of the nurse, was she as much as named to me."
Dr. Jago shook his head.