“She is out of danger,” said I softly.
“Oh, yes,” said Miss Peters. “She will get well. You have saved her.”
She moved her angular shoulders as she adjusted her belt, she strode noiselessly across the room and moved the shade on the lamp. The light now shone so that the blue wall, with its ethereal depths, had turned rosy as with the light of dawn.
“Suppose, Miss Peters—” said I, after staring at it a moment, “suppose that you were called upon for one guess about this wall and its effect upon this child.”
She wheeled about and stared at me.
“I’ve thought of that,” she said.
“What’s behind that wall?” she mused as if to herself. “As between something and somebody, it is not a thing, but a person. A person has been there—perhaps some one overcoming evil or winning some victory over disease.”
“Well,” said I, seeing that she was hesitating, “go on.”
“I can’t exactly go on,” she said. “I don’t want you to take me for a fool. Only, don’t you suppose that you and I, ourselves, must throw out some influence that is not seen with the eyes or heard with the ears? Don’t we affect every one near us with our good and evil? Don’t we affect the people who live above and below in apartments, or to the right and left in houses? Doesn’t strength or weakness come through wood and iron and stone? Didn’t it come through this wall, Doctor?”
“My dear Miss Peters,” said I, shrugging my shoulders, “how can I say? I can only tell you that you have just finished the longest, the most human, and, on the whole, in the best sense, the most scientific observation I have ever known you to make.”