“You mean that only a miracle can restore him?” she said.
“Yes, but I believe in miracles,” said he, “though, unfortunately, you cannot produce a miracle as you can produce a bottle of medicine.”
Catherine got up.
“How strange that you should say that!” she said. “Because Maud believes in them, as you do, but she thinks them most accessible. Only she no longer calls them miracles—she calls them Christian Science!”
Sir James could not have looked cynical or sneering if he had tried, and he certainly did not try. But there was an uncommon dryness in his tone.
“The lady in Boston?” he inquired.
“No; a man in Caithness,” said Catherine. “I will ring; she shall come and tell you if she is in.”
He put up his hand to stop her.
“Ah, one moment, please,” he said. “I want to have two words with you about yourself. My dear lady, you are not well: you are very much overwrought. You have had, you know, a terrible and trying time, and if you had finished with it, I should tell you to go to bed for a week. But you can’t do that. Now, it has told on you more than you guess. Do not give yourself more tasks than you need; for instance, are you not over-taxing yourself unnecessarily here?”
He pointed to the crowded writing-table and the pile of answered letters, which she had been working at when he came in.