Before he left her
he had said to her with meaning in his voice:
"My dear young madam, your recovery is too rapid. It is not a cure: it is
a miracle; and miracles are not easily understood. We must, therefore,
make them understood; and so you will take regularly three times a day
the powerful tonic I will give you."
She was about to interrupt him, but he waved a hand reprovingly and added
with kindly irony:
"Yes, we both know you don't need a tonic out of a bottle; but it's just
as well other people should think that the tonic bringing back the colour
to your cheeks comes out of a bottle and not out of a health resort,
called Slow Down Ranch, about four miles to the north-west of Tralee."
As he said this, he looked straight into the eyes which seemed, as it
were, to shrink into cover from what he was saying. But when, an instant
afterwards, he took her hand and said good-bye, he knew by the trembling
clasp of her fingers--even more appealing than they had yet been--that
she understood.
So it was a few moments later, outside the house, he had said to Joel
Mazarine that he had given his wife a powerful tonic, and he hoped to see
an almost instant change in her condition; but she must have her room to
herself for a time, according to his instructions of the day before, as
she was nervous and needed solitude, to induce sleep. He was then about
to start for Askatoon when the old man said:
"I suppose you won't have to come again, as she's going on all right.
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