"Doctor, I want your help. I feel weak."
"Weak! Great Heavens above! YOU talk of weakness? Don't mock me!"
"It is true, doctor; come along."
"Where are you going?" said the doctor.
"I don't know," said Shock. "Let us go to your office."
The doctor's office was a cheerless room, dusty, disordered, and comfortless. The doctor sat down in a chair, laid his head on the table, and groaned. "It is no good, it is no good. I tried, I tried honestly. I prayed, I even hoped for a time—this is all gone I broke my word, I betrayed my trust even to the dead. All is lost!"
"Doctor," said Shock quietly, "I wish that you would look at me and tell me what's the matter with me. I cannot eat, I cannot sleep, and yet I am weary. I feel weak and useless—cannot you help me?"
The doctor looked at him keenly. "You're not playing with me, are you? No, by Jove! you are not. You do look bad—let me look at you." His professional interest was aroused. He turned up the lamp and examined Shock thoroughly.
"What have you been doing? What's the cause of this thing?" he enquired, at length, as if he feared to ask.
Shock gave him an account of his ten days' experience in the mountains, sparing nothing. The doctor listened in an agony of self-reproach.