These constant headaches, the increasing nervous irritability from which Mrs.
Coombe suffered lay like a shadow over the house.

Yet the sufferer refused to take the obvious way of relief and persisted in her refusal with a stubbornness of which no one would have dreamed her light nature capable.

Still, willing or unwilling, something must be done.

Aunt Amy, too, was becoming more of an anxiety.

Once or twice lately she had spoken of "Them," a sign of mental distress which Dr.Coombe had always treated with the utmost seriousness.