He glanced up. Sir George was still standing there. He must have been waiting a long time. Hal spoke at last, very slowly.
"And that was—Edith?"
The physician nodded his head gravely.
Hal glanced back at the paper but he did not see it. He sat still as if everything was just as it had been before, but he knew that the earth was rocking in a convulsion, that the house of his building was tumbling about him, that he was choking with the circumambient dust, and that he could not move or escape, only sit still until it was all over.
CHAPTER XX
The doctor waited patiently while the other readjusted his disordered faculties and groped his way toward the light.
"Good Lord, how terrible!" said Hal, distrait. "Why, Edith is the last woman in the world—strong willed, self-willed, ambitious! Why, I can't grasp it. It doesn't seem possible. I—I can't realize it."
"Oh, it's common enough these days," said the doctor, sitting down beside the boy and putting his hand on his knee in suggested sympathy. "The pace that kills! No rest, no respite! Teas, dinners, receptions, theatres, balls, races, motors, yachts; bridge, morning, noon and night; excitement, fatigue, reaction, depression; then stimulants, small at first, then more stimulants for greater depression, then over-stimulants; then sleeplessness and all the horrors of neurasthenia; then narcotics for rest and quiet, to keep from going mad; then, all of a sudden as it seems, but really by the most logical process, a habit is formed—a fixed, implacable, relentless habit."
"Poor old girl," said Hal, trying to follow the professional exegesis. "How awful. How awful! But of course people are cured of such things, Sir George. You haven't let this go on?"
"Unfortunately it had been going on for some time before I discovered it, and of course I have done all I can, all I know. I'm afraid it's now beyond me. She has one chance in a thousand, and that chance is in your hands: the fresh air, out-door life, simple living, rest, peace, quiet! Then, if she will help you, if she will help herself, why, who knows?"