"There you have me," she said. "Something is worrying me. It lies entirely out of my power, so I cannot control it; and it is still uncertain, so I cannot make up my mind to it."
"And you can't shake it off, and wait?"
"I am afraid it is because I have failed in that, that I have come to you. I suppose I am demanding the impossible—asking you to 'minister to a mind diseased.'"
"I don't mind ministering to a mind diseased at all—if it is not too diseased to carry out my instructions. In this age of worry and strain one laughs at the stories of the old doctors, who declined to undertake a case if the patient had anything on his mind. They would not have a very flourishing practice now-a-days. Thousands of worries and not a few suicides might be prevented by the timely use of a simple tonic. Prosaic, isn't it?"
"Prove it true in my case, and I shall be grateful to you all my life. I don't play the part of invalid con amore."
"That I believe. What are you going to do with your Easter holiday?"
"I am not going to leave town,—at least not for more than a few days."
"Why not?"
Mona's appearance did not suggest the lack of means, to which Dr Alice Bateson was pretty well accustomed in her practice.
"I want to get on with my hospital work; and besides, it is work that keeps one sane."