Maud had no reply to this. If it was despicable, it was, as Catherine had said, dreadfully pathetic.
“Advise me, dear Maud,” she said at length. “I am horribly troubled about it. The sight of him turning that damned little bottle—no, I’m not sorry: I meant it—upside down in his mouth showed me how awfully he wanted it. I feel one shouldn’t lose a day or a minute. The desire grows like an aloe-flower. But if he won’t see a doctor, what is to be done? I shall send for Sir James as soon as I get back to town, and tell him all about it; but I can’t force Thurso to see him. Besides——” and she stopped.
“Yes?”
“There is nothing in the world so hard to cure,” she said. “It is deadlier than a cancer.”
“But he still wants to free himself,” said Maud.
“Yes; so does a prisoner.”
There was a pause.
“Or do you think I am taking too pessimistic a view?” asked Catherine.
Maud could not help seeing the bright side of things. Sunshine appealed to her more strongly than shadow. It was more real to her.
“Yes; I think you are,” she said. “He let you pour the—well, the damned stuff away. You influenced him more strongly than his desire.”