Alice Yardly leaned forward, smiled, and interrupted violently and volubly.
“Mortal mind had caused the fever originally,” she said, “and it was this that Mr. Cochrane demonstrated over, thus enabling Sandie to throw off the false claim of fever and temperature, for he couldn’t really have fever, since fever is evil.”
“Is temperature evil, too?” asked Thurso. “And why is a temperature of 104 degrees more evil than a normal temperature?”
Alice did not even shut her mouth, but held it open during Thurso’s explanation, so as to go on again the moment he stopped.
“Neither heat nor cold really exist,” she said, “any more than fever, since, as I was saying, fever is evil, and Infinite Love cannot send evil to anybody, because it is All-Good. It was the demonstration of this that made his temperature go down and let him get well. It was only with his mortal mind, too, that he could think he had fever, since there is no real sensation in matter, just as it was through mortal mind, and not through All-Love, that he thought he had caught it. But Immortal Mind knows that there is no sensation in matter, and so no disease. As David said, ‘Thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day;’ and when Sandie, by Mr. Cochrane’s demonstration over mortal mind, perceived that—though he need not have been conscious that he perceived it—the false claim of fever left him, so, of course, his temperature went down.”
Maud gave a sigh, not of impatience, but of very conscious patience, which is very near akin to it.
“Darling Alice,” she said, “you haven’t understood a single word from the beginning. Mr. Cochrane didn’t make Sandie’s temperature go down.”
Alice’s mouth was still open. She interrupted like lightning.
“No, of course not,” she said. “It was not Mr. Cochrane: it was the belief and trust in Immortal Mind that had reached Sandie. It is not the healer who does it: it is Divine Love shining through the healer that disperses false claims. God is good and is All, and matter is nothing, because Life, God, Immortal Mind——”
Maud sat up in her long chair and clapped her hands close to Alice’s face, so that she absolutely could not go on, in spite of the omnipotence of Immortal Mind.