Dr. Weatherby sat down among us. He said to Ren, “You spoke of your king being in ill-health. Do you have much sickness, much disease, here?”
“No,” replied the old man. “Our climate is healthy. Our people have always been so. There is very little—”
“I mean . . . perhaps you have doctors, men of medicine, who are quite skillful?”
“Yes. There are such. In the past they have been very learned. The records of our history—”
“And surgeons, perhaps, very skillful surgeons?” Dr. Weatherby was leaning forward; his hands, locked in his lap, were trembling.
Ren said abruptly, “What do you mean?”
“I mean . . . my granddaughter, Dolores, she is blind.”
The man nodded gravely. “That is so. It is very sorrowful. I have seen others here. It is a terrible affliction.”
“But your surgeons, Ren. I have dared hope that she might be cured.”
There was a moment of breathless silence. A pity for Dr. Weatherby swept me. Ren would shake his head: he would say, “No, she cannot.”