Of them all, Aunt Amy was the only one who understood. How her poor, unsound brain arrived at the knowledge we cannot say. Perhaps Esther was more careless in her presence, dropping her mask almost as if alone, or perhaps Aunt Amy's strange psychic insight took no note of masks, or perhaps--account for it as you will, Aunt Amy knew! Esther and Dr. Callandar loved each other, and Mary stood between. This latter fact was not at all surprising to Aunt Amy. Was it not the special delight of the mysterious "They" to bring misery to all Aunt Amy loved, and was not Mary their accredited agent? The affair of the ruby ring had proved her that, though no one else must guess it. What would come of it all, Aunt Amy could not tell. Wring her hands as she might she could not see into the future. Often she would mutter a little as she went about her work, or stand still staring, straining into the dark. No one noted any difference in her save Jane, for Jane was as yet happily free to observe. The others, caught up in the whirl of their own destinies, saw nothing save the problems in their own anxious hearts.
"Esther," said Jane one evening, "Aunt Amy is odder and odder and you don't seem to care a bit."
Esther, who was preparing to go to a garden party, turned back, a little startled.
"I don't know. Can't you see that she isn't happy?"
"But she is better. She never complains. She almost never fancies things now."
"She goes into corners and stares--and she wrings her hands."
Jane was not equal to a more lucid explanation.
"It's not the same," she insisted. "I know it isn't. Esther, when you go away, will you take Aunt Amy and me?"
"How could I, dear? Your home is here. And you like Dr. Callandar, don't you?"
"I used to. But he never plays with the pup any more. He's different. And you're different and mother's different. I don't want to live with mother. That was a fib I told you the other day about the cut on my head. I didn't fall and hurt it. It was mother She threw her clothes brush at me."
"Jane!" There was pure horror in her sister's voice.
"Yes, she did. I went into her room when she was taking some medicine in a glass and I asked her what it was. Honest, Esther, that is all I did. And she screamed at me--and threw the brush."