Chapter 11 3

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 of, Jake? If you had any real ideas you wouldn't have started with something as fantastic as this business today. If you think I'll change my mind if you stall long enough, you're wrong."

"What about the boys? Have you given them a thought, or are you going to plug them too?"

"You're asking questions you don't have to ask," Joe said.

"Don't play games, Jake," Rennie said. "Do you have anything on your mind or not?"

"Yes, I do," I said. "I know a woman in town who's had a couple of abortions. I'd have thought of her before if I hadn't been so excited. I'll see her tomorrow and find out where she had them done."

"I don't believe you," Rennie said.

"It's the truth, I swear it."

"What's her name, then? Don't make up one."

"Peggy Rankin. She teaches English at the high school."

Rennie went to the telephone at once and looked for the name in the directory.

"8401," she said. "I'll call her and ask her."

"Don't be silly! She's not married. Would she admit something like that to a stranger?"

"You call her, then. Right now. You must not be a stranger if you know that about her."

"You're making it impossible. Women don't work that way -- other women, anyhow. I'll see her tomorrow and let you know tomorrow night."

"I think you're stalling, Jake,"

"Well, think it, damn it! Are you so trigger-happy you can't wait twenty-four hours?" I felt as though I'd explode any instant from sheer desperation, but still Joe watched us impassively. There were books and notebooks open beside the telephone on the writing table: he'd been working on his dissertation! Rennie thought a moment.

"I'll wait till tomorrow night," she said, and went back to waxing the floor.

Rennie had stated the matter exactly when she accused me of stalling in hopes that she'd change her mind, but I could no longer entertain such hopes. Certainly I hadn't the slightest idea whether Peggy Rankin had ever had an abortion, and I had no reason to expect that she'd help me even if she could, for I'd not seen her since the time early in September. She had telephoned me -- first hopefully, then angrily, and at last pleadingly -- a number of times in the past few weeks, but I'd received her calls without warmth or encouragement. The next morning, Sunday, I telephoned her.

"This is Jake Horner, Peggy. I have to see you about something important."

"Well, I don't want to see you," she said.

"This is something awfully serious, Peggy, believe me."

"Yes. It has been about a month, hasn't it?"

"Listen, it doesn't have anything to do with that. I'm trying to help somebody who needs help very badly."

"You're a real humanitarian, all right."

"Peggy, for God's sake! I won't pretend I've been very thoughtful of you, but this is a pretty desperate thing. I realize there's no reason why you should do me any favors."

"That's right."

"Look, you've got me over a barrel. You might not be able to help these friends of mine even if you wanted to, but they're in such a spot that I'd do absolutely anything to help them out. Name your own conditions."

"What do you want me to do?"

"All I want you to do is let me talk to you for a few minutes. As I said, you might not be able to help at all, but there's just a chance that you might."

"Who are the friends?"

"I can't talk over the phone. Can I see you today?"

"Jake, if this is another line I'll kill you."

"It's no line!" I said vehemently. "This doesn't have anything to do with me. When can I see you? The sooner the better."

"Well. All right, then. Come on over now. But, God, Jake, be straight this time."

"This is straight."

I drove over to her place immediately, and she received me with great suspicion, as though she expected to be assaulted at any moment.

"I don't even like to have you in here," she said nervously. "What is it?"

"The wife of one of the guys at school is pregnant, Peggy, and she's going to kill herself if she can't get an abortion."

Peggy's face went hard. "What a monster you are! And you come to me for help!"

"You don't understand yet. They're both good friends of mine, and they don't know where to get the abortion."

"Am I supposed to know? Why doesn't she have the kid, if she's married?" This last with some bitterness.

"She's got two already, and frankly there's some question about who's the father of this one. That's why she's desperate. Her husband knows all about it. She just made one slip."

"Jake, are you the one?"

This I took to be a crucial question: her willingness to help might hinge on my answer, and I had no idea which answer she wanted to hear.

"That's right, Peggy." I looked her straight in the eye, putting all my money on honesty. "It was the stupidest thing I ever did in my life, and now she's going to shoot herself. I've messed them up completely. All I can do now is try to clean up as much of the mess as I can."

"When did you start cleaning up your messes?"

"Two days ago. If I can't find a way to help them by tonight, it'll be too late. That's all the time I've got."

"She won't kill herself," Peggy said contemptuously. "If women killed themselves out of remorse I'd have been dead at least since July."

"She will, Peggy. She'd be dead now if I hadn't stopped her, and she'll be dead tomorrow if I can't help her."

"What do you care?"

I still looked her straight in the eye. "I said I'm trying to clean up my messes."

"You meanthis mess."

"I mean all my messes."

"Some of them it's too late to clean up."

"Maybe. But I'm going to do my best."

"What's that?"

"I don't know, Peggy. I'm new at this. Right now I'm doing whatever people want me to do. I said you could name your conditions."

Peggy stared at me awhile.

"Who's this girl?"

"Rennie Morgan. Her husband teaches history at the college."

But obviously Peggy was more concerned about herself.

"Do you think I've had abortions before? I guess you'd assume that, though, wouldn't you?"

"I'm not assuming anything. I hoped you'd know somebody who has had one, or that maybe you'd have heard of an abortionist."

"Suppose I did know of one?"

"I said already there's no reason why you should help me, and I take it you don't feel one way or the other about Rennie Morgan -- or maybe you dislike her, I don't know. All I can say is that this is my last chance to keep her from committing suicide, and I'll do anything to get your help."

"You must love her a lot."

"If I do I don't know it. Do you know of an abortionist, Peggy?"

After a while she said, "Yes, I do. I had to find one myself, two years ago."

"Who was it?"

"I haven't decided yet that I'm going to help you, Jake."

"Look," I said, in the straightest tone I could manage, "you don't have to assert your position; I'm aware of your position. You don't have to hold out for anything; I've already told you to write your own ticket."

"I could help you," Peggy said; "this man's still around, and he'd do the job. His price is two hundred dollars."

I thought it would be effective if I stood close in front of her, laid my hands on her shoulders, and leaned down to look into her eyes. And so I did.

"What's yours?" I asked, with appropriate calm.

"Oh, Jake, I could name a high price! You've been desperate for a day or two, but I've been desperate for fifteen years!"

"Name it."

"Why? Once she'd had the operation, you'd leave me."

"You want me to marry you, Peggy?"

"That would be my price," she said.

"I'll do it."

"You probably would. Then which would you do afterwards? Just leave me flat, or torture me for the rest of my life?"

"Neither one of those sounds like a good way to clean up messes," I grinned.

"You couldn't possibly do anything else but hate me. No man ever loved a woman he was coerced into marrying."

"Try me."

Peggy was extremely nervous, excited by the position she had me in, a little afraid of her temerity.

"How can I believe you, Jake? You haven't done one single thing to make me believe you can be trusted."

"I know it."

"And yet you say you're being sincere this time?"

"That's right."

"You don't love me."

"I don't love anybody. But I've been a bachelor a good while, and even without this abortion thing I owe you enough to last a right long time."

Peggy shook off my hands and whipped her head in a manner quite like Rennie's.

"What is it about you? Even when you're being kind you put me in a false position -- a humiliating position."

"Well, you be quiet, then. Let me propose to you. I've decided that I want to marry you. If I ever said an honest thing in my life, that's it."

"You never did say an honest thing to me, did you?"

"I just said one. I'd marry you today if we could get the license on Sunday. We'll get it tomorrow and get married on Wednesday."

"You said she had to know tonight."

"That's right. All you have to do is tell her you know a guy. You can call her right now. I think that'll do it. Tell her that for personal reasons or something you can't give his name until Wednesday. If she agrees to wait, I'm satisfied."

"But if she doesn't, that's that?"

Another crucial question, but the proper answer was obvious.

"If she doesn't, there's nothing else I can do for her, but I don't see where that would change my obligation to you. You'd have done all I asked, and I'd do everything I promised."

Now Peggy began to cry, squirming with indecision.

"I'll marry you and love you as much as I can ever love anybody, for the rest of my life," I swore.

She wept for a while without replying, until I began to grow apprehensive. Something else had to be done, immediately. What? I considered embracing her: would that turn the trick, or spoil everything? I was aware that every move was critical now; any word or action -- or any silence or inaction -- could convince her suddenly of my sincerity or insincerity. Peggy Rankin! I was cursed with an imagination too fertile to be of any use in predicting my fellow human beings: no matter how intimate my knowledge of them, I was always able to imagine and justify contradictory reactions from them to almost anything. A kiss now: would she regard it as evidence that I was overplaying my hand, or as evidence that I was too sincere to care whether she thought me insincere? If I made no move, would she think my inaction proof that I couldn't carry the fraud further, that I was so sure she was hooked that no further move was necessary, or that in my profound sincerity I was afraid to move for fear she'd think my proposal a mere stratagem after all?

I took her head in my hands and turned her face up to me. She hesitated for a moment and then accepted a long, hard kiss.

"Thank God you believed me, Peggy," I said quietly.

"I don't."

"What?"

"I don't believe a single lying word you've said since you walked in here. I should have hung up on you when you called. Please get out."

"Good Christ, Peggy! You've got to believe me!"

"If you don't get out I'm going to scream. I mean it."

"Don't you believe Rennie Morgan's going to shoot herself?" I shouted.

She let out a yell, and I had to clap my hand over her mouth to stop her. She kicked and pummeled me, and tried to bite my hand. I forced her back into her chair, sat on her lap to keep her legs still, and clamped my other hand around her throat. She was fairly strong, and it was all I could do to hold her -- with Rennie it would not have been possible at all.

"I'm more desperate than you think, damn it! I meant it when I said I'd marry you, and I mean it when I say I'm going to throttle you right this minute if you don't help me."

Her eyes got round, I took my hand off her mouth, and as soon as she tried to holler again I squeezed her windpipe hard -- really hard, digging my thumb and forefinger into the sides of her neck.

"Stop it!" she squeaked. I let up, afraid I'd really damaged her. The breath rushed into her lungs with a great croak.

"Who's the abortionist?" I demanded.

"There isn't any," she said, clutching her throat. "I don't know any! I was just trying to --"

I slammed her as hard as I could and ran out of the place.

There was nothing else to do: whether I had been sincere or not, whether she had been lying or not, made no difference now. I went home and sat in the rocking chair, sick. It was already eleven-thirty in the morning. I was out of straws to clutch at, and out of energy, beaten clear down the line. I tried to force my imagination to dream up another long shot, but all I could think of was Rennie, eight or ten hours from that moment, going to the living-room closet without a word. Joe, perhaps, would be bent over a notebook on the writing table. He might hear Rennie put down -- her newspaper? -- and go to the closet. I could imagine him then either continuing to stare at the notebook, but no longer seeing the words he'd written, or maybe turning his head to watch her open the closet door. The boys would be asleep in their room. I didn't believe Rennie would come back into the living room to do it. There in the closet, where the half-open door would stand between her and Joe, she'd reach the Colt down from the shelf, move the safety catch off, put the muzzle to her temple, and pull the trigger at once, before the feel of the barrel against her head made her vomit. I believed she might sit down on the closet floor to do it.

That was as far as I could imagine with any clarity, for I'd never seen a bloody corpse. For perhaps two hours -- that is, until about one-thirty -- this sequence of actions repeated itself over and over in my imagination, up to the moment of the explosion. Drastic courses of action: I could go out there and -- try to rush for the gun? But what would I do with it? They'd simply look at me, and Rennie would use something else later. Grab Rennie and hold her, if possible. Forever? Call the police and tell them -- that a woman was about to commit suicide. What could they do? She'd be sitting home reading the paper, Joe working at the writing table. Tell her I've arranged an abortion -- with whom? For when? Tell her -- what?

My rocking slowed to a nearly imperceptible movement. Except for the idea of the gun against Rennie's temple, the idea of the lead slug waiting deep in the chamber -- which was not an image but a tenseness, a kind of drone in my head -- my imagination no longer pictured anything. My bladder was full; I needed to go to the bathroom, but I didn't go. After a while the urgency passed. I decided to try to sayPepsi-Cola hits the spot, but after the first couplet I forgot to say the rest. The urge to urinate returned, more sharply than before. I couldn't decide to get up.

Someone downstairs turned a radio on loud, and I jumped to my feet. It was three o'clock: the half-minute that I thought I'd spent not getting up to go to the bathroom had been an hour and a quarter! A moment later I hurried downstairs to the car; I drove out past the Morgans' at sixty miles an hour, out in the country to Vineland, and to the Remobilization Farm. I found Mrs. Dockey in the entrance hall, tying up large corrugated boxes with rope.

"Where's the Doctor? I have to see him right away."

She jerked her head toward the back of the house. As I went through the reception room I noticed rolled carpets, disarranged furniture, and more paper boxes.

"You're upset," the Doctor observed as soon as he saw me. Dressed in a black wool suit, he was reading the Sunday paper on the back porch, which in cold weather was converted into a sun parlor. He was, fortunately, alone: most of the patients were either taking the air out front or lounging in the reception room. "Sit down."

"I had a touch of my trouble this afternoon," I said.

"Immobility?" He put down his paper and looked at me more carefully. "Then you haven't been applying the therapies."

"No, I'll confess I haven't. I've been awfully busy lately."

It was cool outside, even chilly, but the sun shone brightly, and out over a marshy creek behind the farmhouse a big gray fish hawk hung motionless against the wind. I didn't know where to start.

"If that's so," the Doctor said critically, "I don't understand why you were immobilized."

"I think I can explain it. What I've been doing is trying to straighten out some problems that have come up."

"Well. This time I'm afraid I'll have to know the problem, since it developed after you started therapy. Maybe we'd better go into the Progress and Advice Room."

"I can tell you right here. It won't take long."

"No. Let's go into the Progress and Advice Room. You go on in -- tell Mrs. Dockey so she'll know where we are -- and I'll be there in a minute."

I did as he said, and a little while later he came in and took his position facing me. He'd changed into a white medical jacket. His reason for insisting that we use the room was apparent: not only was the patient's story useful, but in the Progress and Advice Room the very telling of it became a kind of therapy. I felt as a patient must feel on the traditional psychoanalyst's couch -- asking not just for assistance but for treatment.

"Now, what is it?" he asked.

With my knees straight in front of me and my arms folded across my chest, I told him as best I could the story of my brief affair with Rennie, and its consequences. To my surprise it came rather easily, so long as I stuck to the actual events and made no attempt to explain anybody's motives. The most difficult thing was to handle my eyes during the telling: the Doctor, as usual, leaned forward, rolling his unlit cigar around in his mouth, and watched my face the whole time; I focused first on his left eye, then on his right, then on his forehead, the bridge of his nose, his cigar -- and it became disconcerting that I couldn't hold my eyes still for more than a few moments. I told him all the details of my search for an abortionist, and even my interview with Peggy Rankin. It was enormously refreshing to articulate it all.

"There's no question at all about Rennie's resolve," I said at last. "She'll commit suicide tonight if I can't tell her something definite, and I ran out of possibilities at eleven-thirty this morning. It was after that that the paralysis set in, and it lasted until an hour or so ago, when somebody downstairs from me turned a radio on. She'll shoot herself five or six hours from now."

"Is this your idea of a tranquil existence?" the Doctor demanded irritably. "I told you to avoid complications! I told you specifically not to become involved with women! Did you think your therapies were just silly games? Were you just playing along with me to amuse yourself?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Of course you do. For a long time you've considered me some kind of charlatan, or quack, or worse. That's been clear enough, and I allowed you to go on thinking so, as long as you did what I told you, because in your case that sort of attitude can be therapeutic itself. But when you begin to disregard my advice, then that attitude is very dangerous, as I trust you see now."

"Yes, sir."

"Do you understand that if you'd kept up with your treatment you wouldn't be here right now? If you'd studied yourWorld Almanac every day, and thought of nothing but your grammar students, and practiced Sinistrality, Antecedence, and Alphabetical Priority -- particularly if you thought them absurd but practiced them anyway -- nothing that happened would have been a problem for you."

"Frankly, Doctor, I've been more concerned about the Morgans lately than about myself."

"And you see what's happened! Why, if you'd been consistent, even a little obvious, in applying your therapies, I don't think any of it would have happened in the first place. I didn't tell you to make friends! You should have been thinking of nothing but your immobility."

It was time to tell him why I had come out to see him, but he went on talking.

"Now clearly this paralysis you just had is a different sort from what you had before. In Penn Station it was inability to choose that immobilized you. That's the case I'm interested in, and that's the case I've been treating. But this was a simple matter of running yourself into a blind alley -- a vulgar, stupid condition, not even a dilemma, and yet it undoes all I'd accomplished."

"Doctor, excuse me -- that girl's going to shoot herself!"

"It would serve you right if the husband shot you. Mythotherapy -- Mythotherapy would have kept you out of any involvement, if you'd practiced it assiduously the whole time. Actually you did practice it, but like a ninny you gave yourself the wrong part. Even the villain's role would have been all right, if you'd been an out-and-out villain with no regrets! But you've made yourself a penitent when it's too late to repent, and that's the best role I can think of to immobilize you. Well!" he exclaimed, really disturbed. "Your case was the most interesting I've treated for years, and you've all but ruined it!"

For a full two minutes he chewed his cigar in angry silence. I was terribly conscious of minutes slipping by.

"Can't you --"

"Be quiet!" he said impatiently. After a while he said, "The girl's suicide will be entirely anti-therapeutic. Even disastrous. For one thing, the husband might shoot you, or you might even shoot yourself, you've relapsed so badly. These two eventualities I could prevent by keeping you here on the farm, but he might get the police to hunt for you when he finds out you're gone, and I don't want them out here. You've completely botched things! You've spoiled two years of my work with this silly affair."

"Can you give her a shot of Ergotrate, Doctor?" I asked quickly.

The Doctor removed the cigar from his mouth for a moment in order to look at me the more caustically. "My dear fellow, for what earthly reason would I have Ergotrate here? Do you think these ladies and gentlemen conceive children?"

I blushed. "Well -- could you write a prescription?"

"Don't be any more na?ve than you have to. You could just as well write one yourself."

"God. I don't know what to do."

"Horner, stop being innocent. You came out here to ask me to abort the fetus, not to talk about your immobility."

"Will you do it?" I begged him. "I'll pay anything you want to charge."

"An empty statement. Suppose I wanted to charge seven thousand dollars? What you mean is that you'll pay up to maybe five hundred dollars. And since you'd renege on payments after the thing was done, the possible price couldn't be more than one or two hundred. Unless I'm greatly mistaken you haven't more than that on hand."

"I've got about two seventy-five, Doctor. I'll give it to you gladly."

"Horner, I'm not an abortionist. I've aborted perhaps ten fetuses in my whole career, and that was years ago. If I performed an abortion now I'd jeopardize this whole establishment, the future welfare of my patients, and my own freedon. Is two hundred and seventy-five dollars enough for that? Or five thousand, for that matter?"

"I can't offer you anything else."

"Yes, you can, and if you do I'll abort the girl's fetus."

"I'll agree to anything."

"Certainly. But whether you keep your agreement is another matter. I'm preparing to relocate the farm -- no doubt you noticed the things in the entrance hall and the reception room. For a change, we're moving because we want to and not because we have to; I've found a better location, in Pennsylvania, and we're leaving Wednesday. Mrs. Dockey would have contacted you tomorrow if you hadn't come out here today. Now, then, if it weren't for this, the abortion would be out of the question; since we're moving anyway, I'll perform it tonight."

I could scarcely believe my ears. The shock brought tears to my eyes, and I laughed sharply.

"What I'd like to do is simply give you a catheter for the girl. If she walked around with that in her for a day or two it would induce labor and abort the fetus. She'd hemorrhage a lot, but the hospital would have to accept her as an emergency case. This would be better because she wouldn't have to come out here at all, but it takes too long; she might not even start labor until Wednesday, and she'd be so miserable with the catheter in her uterus that she'd probably kill herself anyway. Bring her out here tonight, and I'll scrape the uterus and get it over with."

"I will! Lord, that's wonderful!"

"It's not. It's sordid and disgusting, but I'll do it as a last resort to save your case. What you have to do in return is not only give me all the money you've got to help move the farm to Pennsylvania, but quit your job and come with us. I require this for two reasons: first, and most important, I want you on hand twenty-four hours a day so I can establish you on your schedule of therapies again; second, I'll need a young man to do a great deal of manual labor while the new farm is being set up. That will be your first therapy. Perhaps my fee is too high?"

I remembered the old men in the dormitory.

"Don't dawdle, Horner," the Doctor said sternly, "or I'll refuse. Your case is a hobby with me, but it's not an obsession, and you annoy me as often as you entertain me."

"I'll do it," I said.

"Very well. Tonight I'll do the abortion. You'll have to bring a check for the money, since it's Sunday. Tomorrow you let the college know you're quitting, and Wednesday morning be at the Greyhound terminal in Wicomico at eight-thirty. You'll meet Mrs. Dockey and some of the patients there and go up with them on the bus."

"All right."

"Do you want me to explain all the things I can do to make sure you keep your promise, or at least make you awfully sorry you broke it?"

"You don't have to, Doctor," I said. "I'm exhausted. I'll keep it."

"I'm sure you will," he smiled, "whether you are or not. All right, that's all." He stood up. "The patients go to bed at nine. Bring the girl out at nine-thirty. Don't shine your headlights on the house, and don't make noise; you'll alarm everybody upstairs. And bring your check and your bankbook, so I'll know the check's as large as possible. Good-by."

As I went out, I found Mrs. Dockey still stolidly tying up boxes in the entrance hall.

"The Doctor told me about moving," I said to her. "It looks like I'll be going along with you, for a while, anyhow."

"Okay," she growled, without looking at me. "Be there at eight-thirty sharp. Bus leaves at eight-forty."

"I will," I said, and half ran to the car. It was then close to five o'clock.