n window, leaned his head
against a cushion, shut his eyes, and deliberately relaxed all his
muscles. Every day, sometimes at one time, sometimes at another, he did
this for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour; and in these moments, as
he relaxed his muscles, he also relaxed his mind, banishing thoughts by
an effort of the will. So often had he done this that generally he did
it without difficulty; and though he never fell asleep in daylight, he
came out of this short rest-cure refreshed as after two hours of
slumber.

But to-day, though he could command his body, his mind was wilful. He
could not clear it of the restless thoughts. Indeed, it seemed to him
that he became all mind as he sat there, motionless, looking almost like
a dead man, with his stretched-out legs, his hanging arms, his dropped
jaw. His last patient was fighting against his desire for complete
repose, was defying his will and conquering it.

After his examination of Mrs. Chepstow, his series of questions, he had
said to her, "There is nothing the matter with you." A very ordinary
phrase, but even as he spoke it, something within him cried to him, "You
liar!" This woman suffered from no bodily disease. But to say to her,
"There is nothing the matter with you," was, nevertheless, to tell her a
lie. And he had added the qualifying statement, "that a doctor can do
anything for." He could see her face before him now as it had looked for
a moment after he had spoken.

Her exquisite hair was dyed a curious colour. Naturally a bright brown,
it had been changed by art to a lighter, less warm hue, that was neither
flaxen nor golden, but that held a strange pallor, distinctive, though
scarcely beautiful. It had the merit of making her eyes look very vivid
between the painted shadows and the painted brows, and this fact had
been no doubt realized by the artist responsible for it. Apparently Mrs.
Chepstow relied upon the fascination of a peculiar, almost anaemic
fairness, in the midst of which eyes, lips, and brows stood forcibly out
to seize the attention and engross it. There was in this fairness, this
blanched delicacy, something almost pathetic, which assisted the
completion, in the mind of a not too astute beholder, of the impression
already begun to be made by the beautiful shape of the face.

When Doctor Meyer Isaacson had finished speaking, that face had been a
still but searching question; and almost immediately a question had come
from the red lips.