"But, my dear Doctor, I am not ill."
"There lies your great mistake. You are ill, and that is my reason for interfering, first of all, as a doctor. Have you not been suffering from fever for some days past?"
"Oh, yes; but that is unavoidable in this climate."
"Excuse me; the climate, so far as concerns the districts through which we have lately passed, and the altitude in which we now are, is excellent. If a constitution such as yours could be influenced by climate, you would have been ill during the first portion of our journey—at Khartoum, which is very unhealthy, on the Upper Nile, or the Gazelle River. You were, on the contrary, in perfect health there, better than any of us, and you only began to suffer when we left off."
"From a spirit of contradiction, perhaps," said she, smiling. "But what is the result of your diagnosis?"
"This. Africa has no effect whatever upon your organization, and I must, therefore, look to other causes to account for the fever from which you are suffering, the state of depression and prostration noticeable in you, and for certain nervous symptoms which you cannot conceal from me, notwithstanding all your efforts."
"And what are those causes, Mr. Inquisitor-General?"
"May I tell you?"
"I have made up my mind to hear all your have to say."
"Well, then, they are purely moral. Your mind is ill at ease, your imagination is ever at work, and your heart is distressed. Hence the physical disturbance and disorders which I have just mentioned to you."