Mrs.Allen also required treatment.

Her nervous system was disordered; and, on closer observation, I detected signs of a vagrant imagination, leading her away into states verging upon insanity.
She was fretful and ill-tempered; and rarely spoke to the Captain except complainingly, or in anger.

The visits I made to the Allen house, during the lifetime of Captain Allen, were among the most unsatisfactory of all my professional calls.

I think, from signs which met my eyes, that something more than bitter words passed occasionally between the ill-matched couple.
Late in the day, nearly five years anterior to the time of which I am now writing, I was summoned in haste to visit Captain Allen.

I found him lying on a bed in the north-west chamber, where he usually slept, in a state of insensibility.