Blind Love

"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?