"Mr. Jing?" Dr. Aarons says.

"You might want to talk to Roby more about what happened last night. --or the police should talk to him, whichever you think would work best. There's a good chance he heard something."

"The walls are quite well soundproofed."

He would rather not reveal the fact there's a hole, but investigating a murder takes priority. "I don't know which of them dug it out, or if it was dug out at all-- but there's a hole between the walls. Valentine showed us. Said they talked. They didn't talk about anything important, I don't think, but-- if whatever happened in that room made a sound, Roby could have heard."

"Oh, goodness. We'll have to have that sealed up. And we're going to have to tighten up security in general... Perhaps Miss Donovan should be kept in a straightjacket."

"She's pretty convinced someone else came in to do it, but-- her believing that does not necessarily makes it true." He feels like a bit of a cad, being the person who might be why she's in a straightjacket, but its better than her murdering people while convinced the devil's doing it.

"I'm afraid it's a projection of her own guilt. I don't like being Freudian, but I don't think it has to be... it's easier for everyone to pretend something horrible is someone else's fault. And the psychotic has more options than most to do that."

"It still raises questions of where the knife comes from-- but you're the doctor here. Your guess is going to be easily better than mine."

"She's fiendishly clever. Her intelligence quotient was the highest I've ever tested in this hospital. Certainly brighter than I. If only she'd decided to turn it to a good purpose..."

"You can be the smartest person in the world, but you couldn't pluck a knife from thin air. --Sorry, I don't mean to judge your security. Just playing, ah, devil's advocate."

"You can pluck it from somewhere I don't know how to detect. Any system is beatable. --If she were less intelligent it would be better for her. I don't like it, leaving someone in a straightjacket for their entire life... but I can't have her murdering people, and she can beat the best security measures I come up with."

"It's very unfortunate."

"Did you find out anything useful? Nurse Price said you could, quite literally, speak her language."

"She seems to honestly believe the devil did it-- a devil that appeared human, if that helps. She wants to die. The only reason she has to live is because Roby has convinced her he can bring about 'Carcosa'."

He frowns. "And I'm going to be taking away even that last hope. --I hate this."

"Things would be so much easier if you never had to do things like this." (He aims for a tone of sympathy. He maybe sounds a little like he speaks from experience.)

He shakes his head. "All I wanted to do was help. And I can help, but it's-- I'm sorry. You don't want me to burden you with this."

"No, I understand. And I imagine you don't get to talk about this with other people often. I understand-- the difficulty of having to be quiet about these sorts of things."

He nods. "No one else cares. The other people who run asylums, they think the patients deserve it, or they're-- crazy so they don't matter, it doesn't matter that they suffer-- What Miss Donovan deserves is treatment so that she can leave here and marry happily and have children and never be a danger to anyone around her ever again. What she deserves is to be able to decide whenever she likes to see the sun."

"It's awful. Seeing the suffering and then having to make it happen because there isn't another choice. --or at least, not another moral one. I'd say Donovan is lucky to have a doctor who-- at least knows what he is doing to her. And tries to limit the harm where he can."

"I... try to comfort myself with that."

He smiles sympathetically. "It's a cold comfort, unfortunately."

"It is just enough comfort to keep me from quitting and spending the rest of my life listening to wealthy women's concern about their neurasthenia."

"At least you've got your retirement planned."

He sighs. "I suppose if she's talking to Roby that explains one puzzling thing about her case."