"I think I ought to visit Mrs. Wilford, after that," decided Kennedy, the moment Doyle had left. "This case is really resolving itself into a study of that woman, or rather of her hidden personality."

Accordingly he doffed his acid-stained smock which he wore about the laboratory, and we set out for the Wilford apartment.

When we arrived we were not surprised to find Honora in a highly nervous state, really bordering on hysteria, as we had been told by Doyle. McCabe had taken up a less conspicuous place in which to watch her, from a neighboring apartment in which he had got himself placed.

As we met her, it actually seemed as if Honora had turned from Doyle and McCabe to Kennedy.

"Were the dreams I wrote for you all right?" she asked, with a rather concealed anxiety.

"Perfectly satisfactory," replied Kennedy, reassuringly. "I haven\'t finished with them yet. I\'ll tell you about them later. They were all right, [124] but I never have enough of them. I suppose Doctor Lathrop used to say that too?"

She nodded. Evidently Craig had won her confidence, in spite of what she must have known about us by this time.

"Are there any other dreams that you have thought of since?" he inquired, pressing his advantage.

She passed her hand over her forehead wearily and did not answer immediately.

"You look tired," Craig remarked, sympathetically. "Why not rest while we talk?"

"Thank you," she murmured.

As he spoke, Kennedy had been arranging the pillows on a chaise-longue. When he finished, she sank into them, resting her head, slightly elevated.

Having discussed the various phases of the psychanalysis before with Kennedy, I knew that he was placing her at her ease, so that nothing foreign might distract her from the free association of ideas.

Kennedy placed himself near her head and motioned to me to stand farther back where she could not see me.

"Avoid all muscular exertion and distraction," he continued. "I want you to concentrate your attention thoroughly. Tell me anything that comes into your mind. Tell all you know of your feelings. Concentrate. Repeat all you think about. Frankly express all the thoughts you have, even though they may be painful and perhaps embarrassing."
[125]

He said this soothingly and she seemed to understand that much depended upon her answers and the fact that she did not try to force her ideas.

"Tell me—of just what you are thinking," he pursued.

Dreamily she closed her eyes, as though allowing her thoughts to wander.

"I am thinking," she replied, slowly, still with her eyes closed, "of a time just after Vail and I were married."

She choked back the trace of a sob in her voice.

"It is a dream," she went on. "I seem to be alone, crossing the fields—it is at the country estate where we spent our honeymoon. I see a figure ahead of me. It is Vail. But each time that I get close to him—he has disappeared into the forest that skirts the field."

She stopped.

"Now—I see the figure—a figure—but—it is not Vail—no, it is another man—I do not know him—with another woman—not myself."

She had opened her eyes as though the day-dream was at an end, but before she finished the sentence she had deliberately closed them again.

From what I learned of the method of psychanalysis, I recalled that it was the gaps and hesitations which were considered most important in arriving at the truth regarding the cause of any nervous trouble.

More than that, as she had said the words, it was easy to read into her remarks the fact that she knew [126] there had been another woman in Wilford\'s life. It had wounded her deeply, in spite of the fact—as Kennedy had demonstrated by the Freud theory—that she really had not cared as greatly for Wilford as even she herself had thought.

Even to me it was plain in this day-dream recollection that the man throughout it was really Vail. She knew it was Vail and she knew that woman with him was Vina. But in her wish that it should not be so, she had unconsciously changed the face on the "figure" she saw. It was her endeavor to preserve what she desired. She had unconsciously striven not to have it her husband, as it was not herself she saw in the vision with him.

"Go on," urged Kennedy, gently. "Is there anything else that comes into your mind?"

"Yes" she murmured, dreamily. "I am thinking about some of Vail\'s clients."

"About any of them in particular?" hastened Kennedy, eager to catch the fleeting thought before she might either lose or conceal it. "About any one contemplating a suit for divorce?"

"Y-yes," she replied before she realized it, her eyes opening as she came out of the half-relaxed state again, recalled by the sound of Kennedy\'s voice.

"What were you thinking about that person?"

"That he was devoting entirely too much time to that sort of practice," she answered, quickly, avoiding a direct reply. "I can remember when [127] I first knew him that he was in a fair way to be a very successful corporation lawyer. But the money and the cases seemed to come to him—the divorce cases, I mean."

Kennedy ignored the last, explanatory part of the remark, as though he penetrated that it disguised something. He did not wish to put her on guard.

"Devoting too much time to the practice?" he queried, "or do you mean you think he was devoting too much time and attention to the particular client?"

Honora was thoroughly on guard now, in spite of him. Had she known, she probably would never have allowed herself to be led along until Kennedy struck on such an important "complex." But, quite evidently, she knew nothing of the Freud theory and trusted that her own control of herself was sufficient. And, indeed, it would have been had it not been that the dreams betrayed so much, that even she did not realize, to one who understood the theory. She did not answer.

"Who is it that you were thinking about?" persisted Craig, refusing to be turned aside.

"Oh, no one in particular," she replied, quickly, with a petulant little shrug.

Yet it was plain now that she had been thinking of some one, both in the last remarks and perhaps in the day-dreams she had repeated. She was now trying to hide the name from us.

By this time, also, Honora was sitting bolt-up-right [128] on the chaise-longue, staring straight at Kennedy, as though amazed at her own frankness and a bit afraid of what it had led her into.

"Was it Vina Lathrop?" he asked, suddenly.

"No—no!" she denied, emphatically.

Yet to me it was evident that it most certainly had been Vina whom she had in mind. The association test of the waking state quite accorded with the results of the dream study which Kennedy had made.

Moreover, it was now evident that Honora was holding back something, that she had taken refuge in silence. Vainly Kennedy now strove to restore the relaxed condition, in which she might let her thoughts wander at will. It was of no use. She simply would not let herself go.

Deftly he changed his tactics altogether and the conversation drifted off quickly to inconsequential topics, such as would restore any shaken confidence in him. Clearly it was too early to come to an open break with her. Besides, I understood, Kennedy would rather have allowed her to believe that she had come off victor than to have pressed any minor advantage.

"Please don\'t repeat this," he remarked, as we were leaving. "You can readily understand the reason. I quite appreciate the uncomfortable position in which the city detectives have placed you, Mrs. Wilford. Depend on me, I shall use every influence I have with them to mitigate the hardship of their presence. Besides, I know how [129] brutally annoying they can be. You understand—my position is quite different. And if I can be of any assistance to you, no matter in what way, don\'t fail to command me."

I had expected her to be a bit put out by our continued quizzing. On the contrary, however, she seemed to be actually grateful for Kennedy\'s sympathy, now that he had ceased treading upon dangerous ground.

"Thank you," she sighed, as we rose to leave her. "I feel that you are always trying to be fair to me."

Kennedy hastened to assure her that we were, and we left before the final good impression could be destroyed.

"I consider you an artist, Craig," I complimented, as we left the elevator a few minutes later, after a brief talk with McCabe in which Kennedy urged him to keep a close watch, but to seem not to be watching. "We go to cross-examine; we leave, friends. But I don\'t yet understand what the idea was of trying the association test on her."

"Couldn\'t you see that when we came there she was in a state verging on hysteria?" he replied. "No doubt, if McCabe had stayed she would have been quite over the verge, too. But it would not have done them any good. They always think that if any one \'blows up,\' as they call it, they\'ll learn the truth. That\'s not the case with a woman as clever as Honora. If she gave way to hysteria, she would be infinitely more likely to mislead them [130] than to lead them. Besides, in the study of hysteria a good deal of what we used to think and practise is out of date now."

I nodded encouragingly, not so much that I cared about the subject of hysteria, either what was known of it now or long ago, as that I was deeply interested in anything whatever that might advance the case.

"Perhaps," he went on, "you are not aware of the fact that Freud\'s contribution to the study of hysteria and even to insanity is really of greater scientific value than his theories of dreams, taken by themselves. Study of Freud, as you can see, has led us already to a better understanding of this very case."

"But what sort of condition did you think her in before you reassured her at the start by the association test?"

Kennedy thought a moment. "H............