Page:How I Attended a Nervous Patient.pdf/1

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ND what do you think is the matter, Mrs. Oakenfall?" I inquired.

"Well, really, sir, if it had been anyone else I should have said he'd got the horrors of drink on him. But then, Dr. Cuthill, he knows there isn't a more temperate man in Borleywood."

"How long have you known him?"

"It'll be eighteen months come Michaelmas since he first came to live with me, and a quieter, nicer gentleman (for a foreigner) you couldn't wish to meet."

"What do you say he is?"

"A master at the college—teaches foreign languages, and suchlike. Eyetalian, they say he is, but you'd never know it from his manner, he's that polite; nor his speech either, though he don't always understand what I says to him."

"And he seems very strange?"

"Scared, doctor! Scared out of his senses! I was doing a bit of ironing in the afternoon, and was just thinking it was getting near Mr. Valori's time for coming home, and he'd be wanting his tea presently, when all of a sudden he comes flying up the path and rushes into the house, overturning the ironing board, with never a by-your-leave, and him that's so civil always, and such a gentleman in his ways too. I see he was white as a corpse, with the sweat regular pouring off him, and he flew upstairs to his sitting-room and slammed to the door and locked it for all the world as if the old gentleman was after him. It quite upset me for the time, but as soon as I'd put things straight again I went up and knocked at the door, and asked if he wanted anything. But he wouldn't give no answer, though I could hear him moving about; so I just came down and went a step or two down the garden path to see if I could see him at the window, but he’d got the blind drawn tight. I'm sure he must have seen me, though, for as soon as I looked up the blind gave a shake, just as if he’d been peeping round it like."

"Well, what next?" I suggested mildly, as Mrs. Oakenfall paused and shook her head portentously. Cuthill had hinted, among other things, in his parting advice to me, that this was a person of some influence in the minor spheres of Borleywood; but she told her story with more than a trace of relish for its evident break in the monotony of her life, and as the morning was getting on I had other things beside her dignity to consider.

"Well, sir, I saw no more of him till the evening, when my daughter's husband came to bring me some eggs, for I use a good lot for omelettes and things for Mr. Valori, and then I heard him unlatch his door and come creeping half-way down the stairs till he could see who it was talking to me; so I went out and asked him if he wouldn't have anything to eat, but he called out,