Chapter 38

Friends and patients fell away from Saxham--acquaintances dropped him. Mildred--his Mildred--was one of the rats that scurried from the sinking ship. She had thrown him over and married David, his brother. Her betrayal had been the wreath of nightshade crowning Saxham's cup of woe. Those vertical lines graven on his broad white forehead, those others that descended from the outer angles of the deep-cut nostrils to the corners of that stern mouth of his, and yet those others at the angles of the lower jaw, were ch…