"Gracious sir, I am grateful. I have given a great deal too much
trouble."
"A medical case can never give too much trouble--that is impossible.
Remember, Oxbye, it is Science which watches at your bedside. You are
not Oxbye; you are a case; it is not a man, it is a piece of machinery
that is out of order. Science watches: she sees you through and
through. Though you are made of solid flesh and bones, and clothed, to
Science you are transparent. Her business is not only to read your
symptoms, but to set the machinery right again."
The Dane, overwhelmed, could only renew his thanks.
"Can he stand, do you think, nurse?" the doctor went on. "Let us
try--not to walk about much to-day, but to get out of bed, if only to
prove to himself that he is so much better; to make him understand that
he is really nearly well. Come, nurse, let us give him a hand."
In the most paternal manner possible the doctor assisted his patient,
weak, after so long a confinement to his bed, to get out of bed, and
supported him while he walked to the open window, and looked out into
the garden. "There," he said, "that is enough. Not too much at first.
To-morrow he will have to get up by himself. Well, Fanny, you agree at
last, I suppose, that I have brought this poor man round? At last, eh?"
His look and his words showed what he meant. "You thought that some
devilry was intended." That was what the look meant. "You proposed to
nurse this man in order to watch for and to discover this devilry. Very
well, what have you got to say?"
All that Fanny had to say was, submissively, that the man was clearly
much better; and, she added, he had been steadily improving ever since
he came to the cottage.
That is what she said; but she said it without the light of confidence
in her eyes--she was still doubtful and suspicious. Whatever power the
doctor had of seeing the condition of lungs and hidden machinery, he
certainly had the power of reading this woman's thoughts. He saw, as
clearly as if upon a printed page, the bewilderment of her mind. She
knew that something was intended---something not for her to know. That
the man had been brought to the cottage to be made the subject of a
scientific experiment she did not believe. She had looked to see him
die, but he did not die. He was mending fast; in a little while he
would be as well as ever he had been in his life. What had the doctor
done it for? Was it really possible that nothing was ever intended
beyond a scientific experiment, which had succeeded? In the case of any
other man, the woman's doubts would have been entirely removed; in the
case of Dr. Vimpany these doubts remained. There are some men of whom
nothing good can be believed, whether of motive or of action; for if
their acts seem good, their motive must be bad. Many women know, or
fancy they know, such a man--one who seems to them wholly and
hopelessly bad. Besides, what was the meaning of the secret
conversation and the widespread colloquies of the doctor and my lord?
And why, at first, was the doctor so careless about his patient?