The next morning, early, my eyes opened suddenly,and I leaped in a sweat from my bed with a terrible feeling that Rennie was dead. I called the Morgans at once, and could scarcely believe it when Rennie herself answered the telephone.

"I'm sorry I woke you up, Rennie. God, I was afraid you'd shot yourself or something already."

"No," she said.

"Listen," I begged. "Promise me you'll wait awhile, will you?"

"I can't promise anything, Jake."

"You've got to, damn it!"

"Why?"

"Well, if for no other reason, because I love you." This, I fear, was not true, at least in the sense that any meaningless proposition is not true, if not false either. I'm not sure whether I knew what I was saying when I told Joe I loved Rennie, but at any rate I couldn't see any meaning in the statement now.

"So does Joe," Rennie said pointedly.

"Yes, all right, let's say he loves you more than I could ever love anybody. He loves you so much he's willing to let you shoot yourself, and I love you so little that I'm not."

To my surprise Rennie hung up. I immediately dialed her number again. This time Joe answered.

"Rennie doesn't want to talk to you," he said. "That was a stupid thing you said a minute ago -- stupid or malicious."

"I'm sorry. Listen, Joe, do you think she'll commit suicide?"

"How the hell do I know?"

"Will you stay home with her today and see that she doesn't? Just today?"

"Of course not. For one thing, I can't think of anything more likely to make her do it tomorrow."

"Then youdon't want her to, do you?"

"That's beside the point."

"Just today, Joe! Look, I might be able to get hold of somebody for her if you won't let her do anything today."

"Do you know an abortionist? Why didn't you say so last night?"

"I'm not sure. I don't know any myself, but I know several guys in Baltimore who might know of one. I'm going to call them now. For Christ's sake make her promise to sit still till I see."

"Rennie doesn't take orders from me."

"She will, and you know it. Tell her I know a doctor but I've got to call him to make arrangements."

"We don't operate that way."

"Just today, Joe!"

"Hold on," he said. "Rennie?" I heard him call to her. "Did you intend to kill yourself today?"

I heard Rennie ask why I wanted to know.

"Horner says some of his Baltimore friends might know of an abortionist," Joe said. I was furious that he told her the truth. "He's going to call them and see."

Rennie said something that I couldn't make out.

"She says she doesn't want to talk about anything," Joe said.

"Look, Joe, I'll call around. Maybe it won't even be necessary to have an abortion. I'll try to get hold of some Ergotrate. That ought to do it. Tell Rennie I'll stop out there today or tonight and either bring the Ergotrate with me or else have something definite arranged."

"Yeah, I'll tell her," Joe said, and hung up.

Now it wasn't quite true -- in fact it wasn't at all true -- that I had friends in Baltimore who might know abortionists, for I had no friends in Baltimore or anywhere else. What I did next was telephone every doctor in Wicomico, in alphabetical order. To the first one I said, "Hello. My name is Henry Dempsey. We're new in town and we don't have any regular doctor. Say, listen, my wife's in a terrible predicament: we have two kids already, and she thinks she's pregnant again. She's not a healthy girl -- physically okay, you know, but notpsychologically healthy. In fact she's under psychiatric care right now. I frankly don't think she could stand the strain of another pregnancy."

"Really?" said the doctor, not terribly impressed. "Who's her psychiatrist?"

"You might not know him," I said. "He's in White Plains, New York, where we used to live. His name's Banks -- Dr. Joseph Banks."

"Does your wife commute to White Plains for treatment?" the doctor asked innocently.

"We just moved, sir, as I said, and we haven't been able to find another psychiatrist yet."

"Well, I'm sorry; that's out of my line."

"I know, sir; I didn't mean that. I'm afraid my wife might commit suicide or something any time over this pregnancy, before I can get her to another psychiatrist. She's in a terrible state. Frankly, I was wondering if you wouldn't prescribe Ergotrate or something for her. I know it's out of line, but this is a desperate case. In a year, two years, she could very well be well adjusted enough to have all the kids we want -- we don't want alarge family, but we'd like to have three or four. A pregnancy now will ruin all the progress she's made so far. It'll mess her up completely."

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Dempsey," the doctor said coldly. "I can't do that."

"Please, Doctor! This is desperate! I'm not asking you to go outside the law. I'll get a sworn affidavit from Dr. Banks in White Plains. Will that be okay? He'll take all the responsibility."

"No, Mr. Dempsey. I couldn't possibly do it. I appreciate your dilemma, but my hands are tied."

"Doesn't the law allow you to take measures when the woman's life is in danger from the pregnancy?"

"It's not what the law says, I'm afraid: it's what the people in townthink the law says, and frankly the people around here are as opposed to abortions as I am, whether they're done by drugs or surgery. Besides, if your wife's trouble is mental, it's not that clearly a matter of life or death."

"It is! Dr. Banks will tell you so!"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Dempsey. Good-by."

I tried the same story on the other doctors whom I found listed in the telephone book -- those who would speak to me at all -- only I located my mythical psychiatrist in Philadelphia instead of White Plains, in case I had to drive up there to get the proper postmark on a fake letter. Also, after consulting the Philadelphia directory in the lobby of the Peninsula Hotel, I changed the psychiatrist's name from Joseph C. Banks to Harry L. Siegrist, the name of a bona fide psychiatric practitioner whom I picked at random from the book. But all the doctors turned me down. My nerve began to flag: so predisposed am I to obeying laws, and so much do I fear, as a rule, the bad opinion even of people whom I neither know nor care about, that it was all I could do to muster courage enough to tell my elaborate fiction just once, and with each refusal it became harder to repeat. The effort was demoralizing.

Doctor #7, to my inexpressible relief, seemed not quite so unreceptive to my story. His name was Morton Welleck, and he sounded like a younger man than his colleagues.

"Now, Mr. Dempsey," he said, when I'd finished my piece, "you realize that any doctor who agrees to help your wife is assuming considerable responsibility, don't you?"

"Indeed I do, Dr. Welleck. If there's any way for me to legally assume all the responsibility, I'll do it gladly."

"But unhappily there isn't. I sympathize with your problem, though, and the law does provide that where there's clear danger to the patient's life, certain measures can be taken at the physician's discretion. You admit that Mrs. Dempsey is in good physical condition, so the question is whether her psychological condition is as serious as you believe it is. That would be a difficult thing to prove if anybody wanted to make an issue out of it, and I may as well tell you that certain of my older colleagues in Wicomico would jump at the chance to make an issue out of a thing like this. Frankly, I'm hardly the martyr type."

But I saw the shadow of a chance in Dr. Welleck's tone.

"Wouldn't a sworn affidavit from Dr. Siegrist do the trick?" I pleaded. "He'd be glad to provide one."

"It might," Dr. Welleck admitted. "Of course, I'd have to examine Mrs. Dempsey myself, if only to make sure she's pregnant!" We both laughed, I more tightly than he. "And I'd want to ask her a few questions, you know, even though I'm not a psychiatrist."

"Certainly," I agreed. "I'll have her come right down to your office." I hoped fervently that Dr. Welleck was new in town.

"Do that," he said, "and have Dr. Siegrist call me from Philadelphia, would you? We can decide whether it's advisable to get the affidavit or not, and he can explain Mrs. Dempsey's problem in more detail."

The prospect of driving to Philadelphia at once and impersonating a psychiatrist appalled me, but it seemed my only hope.

"All right," I agreed, "I'll telephone him as soon as I can and have him call you."

"That will be fine," Dr. Welleck said. He paused a moment. "You realize, Mr. Dempsey, that I can't promise anything. Like a lot of small towns, Wicomico is dead set against frustrating Mother Nature. Mainly, I'll admit, it's the older doctors here who are responsible for this sentiment: I doubt there's been a legal abortion here for years and years. Professional ethics aside, they're a collection of old sticks-in-the-mud. If they and some of the religious groups in town got wind of anything like this they'd crucify the poor fellow who did it. We can't always be as liberal as some of us might like to be."

"I understand perfectly, Doctor, but this really is a matter of life or death, I'm afraid."

"Well. We'll see what we can do."

Dr. Welleck's manner gave me some confidence that he could be swindled. For one thing, he talked too much: three of the doctors I'd called had refused to discuss anything at all over the telephone, and none of the others had been anything like so garrulous as young Dr. Welleck. Also, from the nature of the conversation I gathered that he was finding it difficult to compete with the older practitioners, perhaps because he was new in town. Any professional man who would criticize his colleagues to a perfect stranger on the telephone was, I guessed, a man with whom arrangements could be made.

But Philadelphia! To fake a letter was one thing -- I could be anybody in a letter -- but I found it almost insuperably difficult to be even Henry Dempsey on the telephone: how could I be Dr. Harry L. Siegrist? There was no time to waste; already it was ten o'clock, and Philadelphia is two and a half hours from Wicomico. Luckily it was Saturday -- I had no classes to teach, but the college library was open. I drove out there at once, borrowed the first textbook on abnormal psychology that I could find, and set out for Philadelphia without delay. I'd gone no more than ten miles before I realized that if an affadavit had to be mailed from Philadelphia, it would certainly have to be a typewritten document, and I'd never be able to find a typewriter in a strange city. Back home I went, breaking the speed limits, and rushed up to my room. It was after eleven when I got there.

To whom it may concern,I wrote, scratching desperately for sentences:Susan Bates Dempsey, age twenty-eight, wife of Henry J. Dempsey of Wicomico, Maryland, was a patient of mine between August 3, 1951, and June 17, 1953, shortly after which time Mr. and Mrs. Dempsey left Philadelphia to live in Wicomico. Mrs. Dempsey became my patient on the advice of her husband and her physician, Dr. Edward R. Rice of this city, after suffering frequent periods of acute despondency. During two of these periods she threatened to take her own life, and once even slashed her wrists with a kitchen knife. Examination indicated that Mrs. Dempsey had pronounced manic-depressive tendencies, the more dangerous because during her most acute depressions her two young sons often became the objects of her hostility, although at other times she was a competent, even a superior, mother. Mrs. Dempsey suffered markedly from the fear that she might lose her husband's affections: in her depressive states she was inclined to believe that the birth of her sons had detracted from her beauty, and this belief tended to focus her resentment upon her children. However, because she felt only hostility and not persecution, and because her periods of despondency alternated with periods of intense exuberance, even jubilation, my diagnosis was subacute manic-depressive psychosis rather than paranoia.

During the period of her treatment, the amplitude of Mrs. Dempsey's manic-depressive cycle showed an appreciable decrease, and at no time after becoming my patient did she threaten to take her life or the lives of her children. She responds satisfactorily to competent psychotherapy, andwith continued treatment I believe her condition can be most adequately stabilized. When the Dempseys left Philadelphia I recommended that her treatment be continued if possible, but suggested to Mr. Dempsey that immediate resumption was not urgent. However, I also recommended that Mrs. Dempsey avoid pregnancy until completely cured, since her former pregnancies had been largely responsible for her condition.

I believe that an accidental pregnancy at this time will produce a critical recurrence of her despondency; that she will again threaten to take her life, rather than carry the fetus; and that she may very well carry out her threat even if psychiatric treatment were resumed at once, I unhesitatingly recommend, even urge, that for the protection of her other children and herself, Mrs. Dempsey's pregnancy be aborted at the earliest possible moment.

I signed the letter,"Harry L. Siegrist, M.D.," put it into an envelope, and hurried back to my car. I stopped along the road to eat lunch and bone up on the manic-depressive psychosis, and by shortly after three o'clock I was in a telephone booth in a Penn-Whelan drugstore on Walnut Street in Philadelphia, placing a long-distance call to Dr. Welleck in Wicomico. My hands shook; I sweated profusely. When I heard Dr. Welleck's receptionist answer, and the operator asked me to deposit sixty cents, I dropped a quarter on the floor: my courage barely sufficed to retrieve it and ask for Dr. Welleck.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Siegrist," the receptionist said after I'd introduced myself. "Dr. Welleck is at the hospital just now."

"Oh, that's too bad!" I exclaimed in gruff disappointment. "I don't suppose you could reach him?"

"I'm afraid not, sir; he's in surgery this afternoon."

"What a bother!" I was immensely relieved, almost joyous, that I wouldn't have to speak to him, but at the same time I feared for my plan.

"I'll have him call you as soon as he comes in, if you like."

"Oh, now, I'm afraid that won't do," I said peevishly. "My vacation started today, and Mrs. Siegrist and I will be in Bermuda all through October. Mr. Dempsey reached me just as we were closing up the house -- thank heaven! Another hour and we'd have been gone. You know, this is something of an emergency, but my plane leaves two hours from now and I couldn't say where I'll be between now and then. Dr. Welleckwill administer Ergotrate, won't he? This could turn into a nasty thing."

"He wanted to talk to you, Dr. Siegrist."

"I know, I know. Well, see here, I'll have my secretary type up an affidavit before I leave -- this is quite a routine thing, you know -- and I'll have it notarized and sent special delivery and all that. What a nuisance that I can't talk to Dr. Welleck personally!" I said with some heat. "I can't emphasize too much the seriousness of this sort of thing with a manic-depressive like Mrs. Dempsey. She could behave perfectly normally one moment and shoot herself the next, if she hasn't already. Really, Dr. Welleck should give her the Ergotrate at the earliest possible moment. Tonight if possible; tomorrow at the very latest. I've already arranged with Mr. Dempsey to place his wife under the care of one of my colleagues until I get back, but this thing really must be taken care of first."

"I'll tell Dr. Welleck at once," the receptionist said, clearly impressed.

"Please do, and he'll get the affidavit tomorrow morning."

"Could you give me your Bermuda address, sir, in case Dr. Welleck wants to get in touch with you?"

Great heavens! "Mrs. Siegrist and I will be stopping at the Prince George Hotel," I said, hoping there was such a place.

"The Prince George. Thank you, sir."

"And please, tell Dr. Welleck to get that Ergotrate into Mrs. Dempsey as soon as he can. I'd hate to lose a patient over something as silly as this. I don't blame the man for being cautious, but I must say that if it were I, she'd be aborted by this time. A layman could tell she's manic-depressive, and her suicidal tendencies stick out all over. Good-by, now."

I hung up, and very nearly fainted. A big obstacle was behind me, but there was a still bigger one ahead. I found a notary public in a loan office two blocks down Walnut Street (which I prayed Dr. Siegrist didn't happen to patronize) and went in quickly before my nerve failed. It is my lot to look older than my years, but I could scarcely believe anyone would seriously take me for a certified psychiatrist. Besides, it is even more difficult to act out a fiction face to face with the man you're lying to than it is to do it on the telephone. Finally, I wasn't at all sure that notaries didn't demand identification before administering the oath and seal. Assuming the most worldly manner I could muster, I asked a clerk where the notary public was, and he directed me to the assistant manager's desk across the room.

"Howdy do," smiled the assistant manager, a squat, bald-headed, cigar-chewing little man with steel-rimmed glasses.

"My name's Siegrist," I said genially: "Harry Siegrist. I've a paper here somewhere to be notarized, if I haven't left it at the office." I smiled whimsically and made a leisurely search of my pockets. "Oh yes, here you are, you little rascal." I fetched the letter from my inside coat pocket, opened it, and casually scanned it. "Mmm-hmm. There you go, sir."

The assistant manager read the document carelessly.

"Boy oh boy," he said. "She's a real bat, isn't she, Doc?"

"Oh, not as bad as some we get," I chuckled, so pleased I could have died. "Life is just one lunatic after another."

"Ha!" said the notary. "You ought to see some of the boobies we get in here. You could make a fortune."

"I'll bet."

I waited to be asked for my credentials.

"I swear," the notary mused absently, reading my letter again, "I think it's all in their heads. Well --"

He began fumbling in his desk drawer. "Raise your right hand a little bit, will you, Doc?"

I did, and he likewise.

"Now, then, d'you swear before God that the blah blah blah blah and all that?" he asked, still digging around in his desk with the other hand.

"I do."

"Won't make no difference whether you do or not if I can't find my seal," he said cheerfully. My head reeled -- after my good luck in finding a notary as cynical as he was credulous, could my scheme hang on such a mischance as this?

"Ah, there she blows," he said, fishing out the seal. He clamped the official impression on my letter and signed it. Then he called two nearby clerks over to sign as witnesses. "Don't mind reading it," he told them. "Where would American business be today if everybody read things before they signed them? Just put your John Hancock where it says." They did. "All right, Doctor: buck and a half."

I paid him with a bill from my wallet, holding my identity card from view, and left with my letter, which I dropped into the first deposit box I encountered. So much for Philadelphia -- it was four o'clock, and I had to get home fast. In general I was amazed at the success of my plan, but four distressing things were on my mind. First, I had no idea whether Dr. Welleck would be convinced by my completely non-technical affidavit, which for all I knew any M.D. might be able to recognize as spurious at first glance; at any rate, it was entirely possible that if any doubt remained in his mind the coincidence of Dr. Siegrist's taking so immediate a vacation might turn that doubt into frank skepticism: should Welleck at any time be dubious enough to call the office of the real Dr. Siegrist, the jig was up. Second, I had deliberately not left a telephone number with Welleck, and of course there was no Henry Dempsey in the Wicomico directory; despite the fact that there are human beings without telephones, Welleck's inability to reach me, should he try before I got home and called him, could add to his suspicion. The third unknown was even more worrisome: even if everything else worked out perfectly and Welleck consented to administer the Ergotrate, it was quite possible that he was not new in town at all and might know Rennie. Finally, even if he didn't, there was one more danger: so innocent was I of the business of abortion that, for all I knew, Welleck might require that Rennie go to the hospital for something or other, since the thing was going to be legal, and even if Welleck himself didn't know her, someone at the hospital surely would.

As soon as I reached my room again I called Welleck at his house.

"Oh, Mr. Dempsey," he said, a little coldly. "I've been trying to telephone you."

"I'm sorry, Doctor. We haven't had a phone put in yet, and I have to use my landlord's. I'd have called you earlier, but I've been driving my wife around in the country today, to sort of keep her mind off things."

"Well, Dr. Siegrist called from Philadelphia."

"Did he? Good! I barely caught him before he left on his vacation. Did you get anything straightened out?"

"I didn't talk to him. I was in surgery. He talked to my receptionist, and he's sending down an affidavit. My understanding is that he strongly recommends the abortion."

"Whew!" I laughed. "You don't know how relieved I am."

"Yes. Now he said something to my receptionist about giving the Ergotrate tonight, but I'm afraid I can't do it until I have the affidavit in my hands. If he mailed it special delivery this afternoon, I should get it at least by Monday morning."

"That's wonderful."

"You give me your landlord's number and I'll let you know when the affidavit comes so you can bring Mrs. Dempsey in to the office."

"Well, now, my landlord's right touchy about receiving calls for me, and frankly this is none of his business. I'd rather he knew nothing about it, because he's a terrible gossip. Couldn't I call you?"

"Perhaps that would be better. Despite the fact that this won't be illegal, we'd just as well keep it quiet. Call me around noon on Monday, and if I have the affidavit I'll give you an appointment for after lunch."

"That's fine."

"Oh, one more thing. I have a standard authorization form that I use for sterilizations, abortions, and the like. Both you and your wife will have to sign it, and you'll have to get it notarized. You could do that Monday morning if you like. Just pick up the form from my receptionist."

"Okay. Swell. Good night, Doctor."

Another document, another notary, another hurdle to clear -- but by this time I was past caring. I drove in weary triumph out to the Morgans' house to announce rny success. On their doorstep I got the cold shudders: I'd been out of town most of the day -- what if I was already too late? Joe answered the door.

"Oh, hello, Jake. You look sick."

"Is Rennie okay?"

"She's still with us, if that's what you mean. Come on in."

Rennie was waxing the kitchen floor. She scarcely acknowledged my presence.

"Well, I think it's all set," I said, feigning tranquillity. "If you want an abortion, Rennie, you can get a shot of Ergotrate Monday afternoon."

Joe showed no reaction to the news. Rennie came to the kitchen doorway, waxing rag in hand, and leaned against the doorframe.

"All right. Where do I have to go? Baltimore?"

"Nope. Right here in town. Just don't tell me you know Dr. Morton Welleck."

"Dr. Welleck. No, I don't know him. Do you, Joe?"

"I know of him. He's been here about two years. You mean the damned fool's an abortionist?"

"Nope," I said, not a little proudly. "He's a completely legitimate doctor, and a pretty good one, so I hear. And everything's going to be completely legal. You don't have to feel guilty or afraid of going to him at all."

"How come?" Joe asked.

"As a matter of fact, I told him pretty much the truth. I said you had two kids already and wanted more later, but you were so despondent about getting pregnant just now that I was afraid you were on the verge of suicide. Of course it was a little more elaborate than that."

"How was it more elaborate, Jake?" Rennie asked wonderingly.

"Well, I had to jazz it up a little. You're my wife these days, for one thing: Mrs. Henry J. Dempsey, of the Philadelphia Dempseys."

"What?"

I warmed to the story then, exhilarated by my day's adventures, and told them in detail about the telephone calls, the trip to Philadelphia, the letter, the impersonations of Dr. Siegrist, and the assistant manager of the loan office. They listened in astonishment.

"So, all Mr. and Mrs. Dempsey have to do now is sign an authorization Monday morning and get it notarized, and we're set. You don't have to act crazy or anything, and once you've had the shot you can forget the whole business."

Joe watched Rennie with interest.

"That's absurd," she said at once.

"Isn't it fantastic?" I grinned, not wanting to believe she meant what I feared she meant.

"It's horrible!"

"You'll do it, won't you?"

"Of course not. It's out of the question."

"Out of the question! Good Christ, Rennie, I've run my ass off today getting it set up, and you say it's out of the question. Nothing will happen, I swear!"

"That isn't the point, Jake. I'm through lying. Even if I didn't have to sign anything or say anything it would still be lying. You should've known I wouldn't want anything to do with it."

I was sick: the whole edifice came down. Joe's expression didn't change, but I felt a great unanimity of spirit between him and Rennie. I was out of it.

"Shoot yourself then, damn it!" I cried. "I don't know why I bothered to sweat my tail off for you today anyhow, if you don't really want an abortion. Obviously you were just being melodramatic last night."

Rennie smiled. "Iam going to shoot myself, Jake, as soon as it's clear that you can't arrange an abortion. I wasn't just being dramatic. I don't care who does the job or where it's done or under what circumstances, but I won't tell lies or assent to lies, and I won't pretend to be anybody but myself. I don't know anybody and Joe doesn't either. If you hadn't said you thought you did, I wouldn't have waited this long." She rubbed her hand once across her stomach. "I don't want this baby, Jake. It might be yours."

She was clearly sincere. I looked desperately to Joe for support, but he was noncommittal. Again I felt their unanimity. It occurred to me to accuse them of romanticism; to make fun of their queer honor -- God knows it needed poking fun at, and a great part of me longed to do the job wholeheartedly -- but I no longer trusted this strategy: it might only confirm what was already evidently a pretty fixed resolve.

"Don't do it yet, Rennie," I said wearily. "I'll think of something else."

"What will you think o............