"Emelie, Phillip and I have already discussed this subject."
"I know; he has told me, Will; but I thought, perhaps, after you had given the matter more consideration, in view of these recent developments, you might think more favorably of it," Mrs. Seabrook eagerly interposed.
"But I do not think more favorably of it," was the cold response.
"But why? What possible objection can you have to giving the method a trial?" queried Mrs. Seabrook and flushing with momentary indignation at his intolerant attitude. "You have eagerly welcomed and tried everything that numerous physicians have suggested and which, after years of patient experimenting, have done absolutely no good. I cannot understand why you should be so obstinately opposed to what anyone can see, can do no possible harm, even if no permanent relief is derived from it."
"I am not so sure that 'no harm' would result from it," the professor observed, in an inflexible voice.
"I wish you would explain what you mean, Will, and not hold yourself so obscurely aloof from the subject," returned his wife, with unusual spirit and an unaccustomed spark in her mild eyes. "I am not a child, to be merely told that a thing is not good for me, and consequently cannot have it. If there is a good and sufficient reason why Dorothy shall not have Christian Science treatment, I would like to know what it is. For eight years I, as well as my child, have been a martyr in a chamber of torture, and my burden is growing heavier than I can bear."
Her lips quivered and her voice broke with those last words.
Her husband reached out his hand and laid it caressingly against her face, drawing her head down upon his shoulder.
"I know it, sweetheart," he said, with tremulous tenderness, "and my own heart rebels against it every day of my life. Perhaps I have seemed arrogant in my attitude toward what you have suggested. I feel so. I am utterly intolerant of Christian Science and will have nothing to do with it."
"But why, Will? You do not state any reason. Why do you condemn it without a trial—without investigation? You know nothing about it- —-"