"
Diana's eyes implored him.
"Give him hope," she said, with intensity. "For weeks--months--he has
never allowed himself a moment's hope."
The doctor reflected.
"We will do what we can," he said, slowly. "Meanwhile,
cheerfulness!--all the cheerfulness possible."
Diana's faint, obedient smile, as she rose to leave the room, touched
him afresh. Just married, he understood. These are the things that
women do!
As he opened the door for her he said, with some hesitation: "You have,
perhaps, heard of some of the curious effects that a railway collision
produces. A man who has been in a collision and received a blow suffers
afterward great pain, loss of walking power, impairment of vision, and
so forth. The man's suffering is real--the man himself perfectly
sincere--his doctor diagnoses incurable injury--the jury awards him
damages. Yet, in a certain number of instances, the man recovers. Have
we here an aggravated form of the same thing? _Ah, madame, courage!_"
For in the doorway he saw her fall back against the lintel for support.
The hope that he infused tested her physically more severely than the
agonies of the preceding weeks.
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