“And this Mr. Cochrane,” he asked—“where is he?”
“In America,” said Maud. “I heard from him two days ago. He is in New York.”
“I have read some of their literature,” said Sir James, “and I have heard about some of their cures. Now, as a doctor, I can’t recommend your employing Mr. Cochrane, but you can, if you choose, send him a telegram acquainting him with the state of affairs. You see, I don’t think he can hurt your brother, and we doctors can’t benefit him.”
“Am I to get Mr. Cochrane to come here, then?” asked Maud.
“No; in the first place it is a good deal to ask, and in the second, if only you or Lady Thurso could persuade Lord Thurso to go, I am convinced that a sea-voyage, though it will not in the smallest degree cure him, will be generally beneficial. Now, do you think it is in your power to persuade him to go? You needn’t say anything about a Christian Science healer waiting for him at the other end; there will be plenty of time for that when you get him on board ship.”
Maud thought over this. There was a suggestion that she felt she had better make, which was rather difficult for her to put to him.
“Yes; I think I might be able to persuade him,” she said, “because certainly he used often to listen to me when he would listen to no one else. And would you think it odd if I suggested that he and I went alone, without Lady Thurso?”
“I should have suggested it if you had not,” said the doctor. “But tell me why you did.”
“Ah! poor Thurso is mad,” said she. “He is not in the least himself. But ever since the summer he has been behaving to Catherine as if he hated her.”
The doctor nodded.