he doctors came back on their round with Nurse Spiller, I was ready.
''Mrs Rivers, how are you?'' said Dr Christie, after he had given Betty her sugar and spent a minute looking over Mrs Price and Miss Wilson.
''I am perfectly clear in my head,'' I said.
He looked at his watch. ''Splendid!''
''Dr Christie, I beg you—!''
I dipped my head and caught his eye, and I told him my story, all over again—how I was not Maud Rivers, but had only been put in his house through a terrible trick; how Richard Rivers had had me at Briar as Maud Lilly''s servant, so I might help him marry her and, afterwards, make her out to be mad. How they had swindled me and taken her fortune, all for themselves.
''They have played me false,'' I said. ''They have played you false! They are laughing at you! You don''t believe me? Bring anyone from Briar! Bring the vicar of the church they were married in! Bring the great church book—you''ll see their names put there, and next to them, my own!''
He rubbed his eye. ''Your name,'' he said. ''Susan—what are you calling it, now?—Trinder?''
''Susan— No!'' I said. ''Not in that book. It is Susan Smith, in there.''
''Susan Smith, again!''
''Only in there. They made me put it. He showed me how! Don''t you see?''
But now I was almost weeping. Dr Christie began to look grim. ''I have let you say too much,'' he said. ''You are growing excited. We cannot have that. We must have calm, at all times. These fancies of yours—''