“My treasure! I will have Master Aristoteles to see to thee. I really hoped thou wert getting over it.”
“It is of no use trying to keep me,” she answered quietly. “You had better let me go—Mother.”
The Countess’s reply was to clap her hands—at that time the usual method of summoning a servant. When Levina tapped at the door, instead of bidding her enter, her mistress spoke through it.
“Tell Master Aristoteles that I would speak with him in this chamber.”
The mother and daughter were both very still until the shuffling of the physician’s slippered feet was heard in the passage. Then the Countess roused herself and answered the appeal with “Come in.”
“My Lady desired my attendance?”
“I did, Master. I would fain have you examine this child. She has a strange fancy, which I should like to have uprooted from her mind. She imagines that she is going to die.”
“A strange fancy indeed, if it please my Lady. I see no sign of disease at all about the damsel. A little weakness, and low spirits,—no real complaint whatever. She might with some advantage wear the fleminum (Note 1),—the blood seems a little too much in the head: and warm fomentations would help to restore her strength. Almond blossoms, pounded with pearl, might also do something. But, if it please my Lady—let my Lady speak.”
“I was only going to ask, Master, whether viper broth would be good for her?”
“A most excellent suggestion, my Lady. But, I was about to remark, the physician of Saint Albans hath given me a most precious thing, which would infallibly restore the damsel, even if she were at the gates of death. Three hairs of the beard of the blessed Dominic (Note 2), whom our holy Father hath but now canonised. If the damsel were to take one of these, fasting, in holy water, no influence of the Devil could have any longer power over her.”