He could tell me nothing about her, he said, nor what had become of her since she had left his hands.
'The parish officer is taking his holiday,' he added. 'I mean to inquire about her. I wish I could take her to Paris to the Salpêtrière, where Marini is treating such cases by transmitting through magnetism the patient's seizure to a healthy subject.'
'Will she recover?'
'Without the Salpêtrière treatment?'
'Will she recover?' I asked, maddened beyond endurance by all this cold-blooded professional enthusiasm about a case which was simply a case of life and death to Winnie and me.
'She may, unless the seizures become too frequent for the strength of the constitution. In that event, of course, she would succumb. She is entirely harmless, let me tell you.'
He told me that she was at the cottage, where some good soul was seeing after her.
'I'll get up,' I said, trying to rise.
'Get up!' said the doctor, astonished; 'why do you want to get up?
You are not strong enough to sit in a chair yet.'
This was, alas! but too true, and my great object now was to conceal my weakness; for I determined to get out as soon as my legs could carry me, though I should drop down dead on the road.