It was not melancholy. That abyss was still visible to him, but he resolutely looked away from it, back turned to its beckoning verge. This was something different; a sense of suspended animation, as though he was waiting for something without which he could not continue his life—and yet with no idea what that something might be, and no notion how to find it.

His daily correspondence these days was scanty; those friends who had expressed sympathy and extended invitations upon his return had been discouraged by his continued refusals, and while a few stubborn souls continued to call or write—Lucinda Joffrey, for one—they left him alone for the most part.

He therefore looked at the letter the butler laid beside his plate with a faint curiosity. It didn’t bear an official seal, thank God, or have the look of anything pertaining to the regiment. If it had, he reflected, he should have been tempted to put it into the fire. He daily expected notification of Percy’s court-martial—or his death—and feared to read either one.

As it was, he waited until the meal was finished, and took the letter with him out into the garden, where he finally opened it beneath a copper beech. It was from Dr. Humperdinck; he caught sight of the signature, and would have crumpled the letter in disgust, had he not also caught sight of the opening sentence.

I have remembered,it began simply.

Grey sat down slowly, letter in hand.

My dear Lord John—

I have remembered. Not everything, assuredly; there are still considerable lacunae in my recollection. But I recalled quite suddenly this morning the name of the man I was to meet at White’s. It was Arthur Longstreet, and I have it firmly in my mind that I was called to a medical consultation with him.

My mind is unfortunately still a blank, though, with regard to the matter he desired to consult me upon, and also to his occupation and address.

I think I have not met him, as I have no face to attach to this name, and thus must have been summoned by letter—though if that be the case, it is not among my correspondence.

Are you by chance acquainted with Mr. Longstreet? If so, I should be very much obliged if you would send me his direction, that I might write and explain matters. I hesitate to impose upon you, but since I have the impression that it was a medical matter, I did not wish to make inquiries at White’s and thus perhaps expose Mr. Longstreet’s privacies inadvertently. Of course, if you do not know the gentleman, I shall do that, but I dare to presume upon our acquaintance and your good nature to begin with.

With my greatest thanks, I remain

Your obt. servant,

Henryk van Humperdinck

Grey was still sitting under the copper beech when one of the footmen came out with a tea tray.

“My lord? Mrs. Stubbs says you will take some refreshment.” Grey was preoccupied, but not so much so as not to notice the firmly directive phrasing of this particular statement.

“Does she?” he said dryly. He picked up the cup and sniffed cautiously. Chamomile. He made a face and poured it into the perennial bed.

“Do thank my cousin for her kind solicitude, Joe.” He stood up, picked up one of the pastries, discovered it to be filled with raspberries, and put it back. Raspberries made him itch. He took a piece of bread and butter, instead.

“And then have the coach brought round, please. I have a call to make.”

Longstreet’s house was a modest one. Men of means did not become army surgeons, and while Longstreet’s cousin was evidently able to place twenty-thousand-pound wagers, Grey noted, the doctor’s branch of the family must be significantly less wealthy.

He had never heard whether Longstreet was married. A middle-aged female servant admitted him, looking surprised, and pottered off in search of the doctor, leaving Grey in a small, neat parlor whose walls, shelves, and cases held the souvenirs of a man who had spent much of his life abroad: a set of German beer steins, a trio of French enameled snuffboxes, a series of case knives inlaid with elaborate marquetry, four grotesque masks, garishly decorated with paint and horsehair, whose origin he did not recognize…. Evidently, Longstreet liked matched sets.

Grey hoped this tendency implied a desire on the doctor’s part for completeness.

A halting step and a wheezing breath announced the arrival of the artifacts’ owner. Longstreet was diminished physically, Grey saw, but still himself. Normally lean, he was thinner now, the bones of face and wrist sharp as blades, and his skin gone a strange shade of gray that seemed faintly blue in the rainy light of the window. The doctor leaned heavily on a stick, and his housekeeper watched him with a certain tenseness of body that suggested he might fall, but she made no move to help him, though from her face she would have liked to.

The eyes, though, were unchanged: clear, a little angry, half amused. Not at all surprised.

“How are you, Lord John?” he asked.

“Well, I thank you.” Grey inclined his head. “And I dothank you,” he added politely. “I gather that you are in large part responsible for my survival.” Whether you meant to be or not,he thought.

Longstreet nodded, and eased himself down into an armchair, from the depths of which he surveyed Grey sardonically.

“You were…somewhat more fortunate than I.” He touched his laboring chest briefly. “Bullet through…both lungs.”

“I regret to hear it,” Grey said, meaning it. Longstreet gestured toward the other chair, and he pulled it forward and sat down.

“Have you consulted Dr. Humperdinck regarding your condition?” he asked. It was as good an opening as any.

Longstreet raised one iron-gray brow.

“Humperdinck? Me? Why?”

“He is an expert in conditions of the chest, is he not?”

Longstreet stared at him for a moment, then began to wheeze in an alarming manner.

“Is…that what…they…told you?” he managed at last, and Grey realized that he was laughing. “Who-whoever sent you to him?”

“Yes,” Grey said, becoming mildly irritated. “He is not?”

Longstreet suffered a brief coughing fit, and clapped a handkerchief to his mouth, shaking his head.

“No,” he wheezed at last, and breathed heavily for a moment before continuing. “He is a specialist in mental disorders, par-particularly those of a melancho-cholic disposition.” Longstreet looked him over, openly amused. “Was he of…help?”

“Oddly enough, yes.” Grey kept any hint of an edge from his voice, suppressing a burst of annoyance at Lucinda Joffrey. “He sent me to you.”

“He did?” The sharp gray eyes went suddenly wary. “Why? He does not know me.”

“No?” Grey thought it politic not to describe Dr. Humperdinck’s disordered memory—just yet. “Then why did you summon him to meet you at White’s, on the evening when I first met you there?”

His own mind had been momentarily disordered by the revelation of Humperdinck’s specialty, but was now working again. In fact, his sense of reason had suddenly reasserted itself, after what seemed months of absence, and the sheer relief of being able to think logically again was like water in the desert.

Longstreet had pressed the handkerchief to his mouth again, and was coughing, but it was apparent to Grey that this was no more than a gambit to gain time in which to think—and he did not propose to allow such advantage.

“You did not—I am sure—seek his professional opinion with regard to yourself,” he said. “So it was for someone else. Someone who would not or could not go to Humperdinck on his own account.” He watched Longstreet’s face carefully, but saw no flash of wariness or satisfaction at the word “his.” Good, so it was not a woman; he had thought it might be a wife or mistress, which would likely be no concern of his.