“I want you to be governed by the best possible advice, dearest, in the care of your health.”
“You don’t think there is danger, George; that I am to be taken away from you, just when all our secrets and sorrows are over?”
“Indeed, no, dearest! God grant you may be spared to me for many happy years to come!”
“There is no reason, I think, that it should not be so. Mr. Porter said my complaint was chiefly nervous. He would not wonder at my nerves being in a poor way if he knew how I suffered in those bitter days of banishment.”
The examination was long and serious, yet conducted by the physician with such gentle bonhomie as not to alarm the patient. When it was over, he dismissed her with a kindly smile, after advice given upon very broad lines.
“After the question of diet, which I have written for you here,” he said, handing her half a sheet of paper, “the only other treatment I can counsel is self-indulgence. Never walk far enough to feel tired, or fast enough to be out of breath. Live as much as possible in the open air, but let your life out of doors be the sweet idleness of the sunny South, rather than our ideal bustling, hurrying British existence. Court repose—tranquillity for body and mind in all things.”
“You mean that I am to be an invalid for the rest of my life, as my poor mother was for five years before her death?”
“At what age did your mother die?”
“Thirty-four. For a long time the doctors would hardly say what was the matter with her. She suffered terribly from palpitation of the heart, as I have done for the last six months; but the doctors made light of it, and told my father there was very little amiss. Towards the end they changed their opinion, and owned that there was organic disease. Nothing they could do for her seemed of much use.”
Mildred went back to the waiting-room while her husband had an interview with the doctor; an interview which left him but the faintest hope—only the hope of prolonging a fading life.