II.

I do not know that I ever entered a more delicately perfumed room--and

I am very sensitive to perfumes--than the one in which Florence Campbell

sat.

She arose from her deep arm-chair as I entered, and, extending her hand,

grasped mine with a vigor unusual in a woman, even when she is well.

"This is Dr. Hamilton?" she said, in a clear voice, which told nothing

of pain, and was wholly free from the usually querulous note struck by

women who are ill, or who think that they are. "This is Dr. Hamilton? I

am very glad to see you, doctor. I am Florence Campbell. You received a

note from your friend, Dr. Griswold, of Chicago, and one telling how

I came to send it to you--how I came into possession of it." Direct of

speech, clear of voice, hand feverish, but firm in grasp, I commented

mentally, as she spoke.

This is not what I had expected. This is not the limp little blonde that

I had pictured, on a lounge, in tears, with the light fluffy hair in

disorder, and a tone of voice which plead for sympathy. This is not the

figure I had expected to see.

She stood with her back to the light, very erect and well poised.

"Come to the window," I said. "Does your head ache?" That is always a

safe question to ask, you know.

She laughed. "Oh, I don't know that it does--not particularly. I fancy

there is not enough inside of it to ache much. Mere bone and vacuity

could not do a great deal in that line, could it, doctor?" Then

she laughed again. She looked me in the eyes, and I fancied she was

diagnosing _me_.

Her eyes were deep, large, and brown, or a dark gray; her complexion

was dark and clear--almost too transparent; her cheeks were flushed a

little; and the light in her eyes was unnaturally intense.

She was evidently trying to gain time--to take my measure.

"It is always a rather trying thing to get a new doctor; don't you think

so?" she asked, with another little laugh. "I always feel so foolish to

think I have called him to come for so trifling a matter as my ailments

are. I am never really ill, you know," she said with nervous haste; "but

I am not very strong, and so I often feel--rather--under the weather,

and I always fancy that a doctor can prevent, or cure it; but I suppose

he cannot. I shall really not expect a great deal of you, in that line,

doctor. I cannot expect you to furnish me with robust ancestors, can I?

Just so you keep me out of bed"--and here, for the first time, I noticed

a slight tremor in her voice--"just keep me so that I can read,

and--so that I shall not need to sit alone, and--think--I shall be quite

satisfied--quite." She had turned her face away, as she said the last;

but I saw that she was having a hard struggle to keep back the tears,

notwithstanding the little laugh that followed.

I had felt her pulse; it was hardly perceptible, and fluttered rather

than beat; and I had watched her closely as she spoke; but whenever she

came near the verge of showing deeper than the surface she broke in with

that non-committal little laugh, or turned her face, or half closed her

great eyes, and I was foiled. Her pulse and the faint blue veins told me

one story; she tried to tell me quite another.

"How are you suffering to-day," I asked.

She looked steadily at me a moment, then lowered her eyes, raised her

left hand (upon which I remember noticing there was a handsome ring),

looked at its palm a moment, held her lips tightly closed, and then,

with a sudden glance at me, again as if on the defensive said:

"I hardly know; I am only a little under the weather; I am weak. I

am losing my--grip--on myself; I am--losing my grip--on my--nerves. I

cannot afford to do that." The last was said with more emotion than she

cared to display. So she arose, walked swiftly to the dressing-case,

took up a lace handkerchief, glanced at herself in the mirror, moved a

picture (I noticed that it was a likeness of an old gentleman, perhaps

her father), and returned to a chair which stood in the shadow, and

then, with a merry little peal of laughter, said: "Well, I don't wonder,

doctor, that you are unable to diagnose that case. It would require a

barometer to do that I fancy, from the amount of weather I got into it.

But really, now, how am _I_ to know what is the matter with me? That is

for you to say; I am not the doctor. If you tell me it is malaria, as

all of you do, I shall be perfectly satisfied--and take your powders

with the docility of an infant in arms. I suppose it _is_ malaria, don't

you?"

I wanted to gain time--to study her a little. I saw that she was, or had

been really ill; ill, that is, in mind if not in body. I fancied that

she had succeeded in deceiving Griswold into treating her for some

physical trouble which she did not have, or, if she had it, only as a

result of a much graver malady.

The right branch may have been found and nipped off from time time

when it grew uncomfortably long, but the root, I believed, had not

been touched, and, I thought, had not been even suspected by her former

physician.

We of the profession, as you very well know, do not always possess that

abiding faith in the knowledge and skill of our brethren that we demand

and expect from outsiders.

We claim our right to guess over after our associates, and not always to

guess the same thing.

I believed that Griswold had not fully understood his former patient.

"Sulph. 12," indeed! Then I smiled, and said aloud:

"Dr. Griswold writes me that in such cases as yours he advises sulph.

12--that it has given relief. Do you call yourself a sulphur patient?" I

watched her narrowly, and if she did not smile in a satirical way, I was

deceived. "Are you out of that remedy? and do you want more of it?" I

asked with a serious face.

She did not reply at once. There seemed to be a struggle in her mind as

to how much she would let me know. Then she looked at me attentively

for a moment, with a puzzled expression, I thought; an unutterably weary

look crossed her face. She said, slowly, deliberately: "I have no doubt

sulphur will do as well as anything else. Oh! yes--I am decidedly a

sulphur patient, no doubt I suppose I have taken several pints of that

innocent remedy in my time. A number of physicians have given it to

me from time to time. Your friend is not its only devotee. Sulphur and

nux--nux and sulphur! I believe they cure anything short of a broken

heart, or actual imbecility, do they not, doctor?" She laughed, not

altogether pleasantly.

How far would she go and how far would she let me go, with this

humbuggery? I looked gravely into her eyes, and said, "Certainly they

will do all that, and more. They sometimes hold a patient until a doctor

can decide which of those two interesting complaints is the particular

one to be treated. In _your_ case I am inclined to suspect--the--that it

is--_not_ imbecility. I shall therefore begin by asking you to be good

enough to tell me what it is that affects your heart."

I had taken her wrist in my hand, as I began to speak. My finger was on

her pulse. It gave a great bound, and then beat rapidly; and although

her face grew a shade paler and her eyes wavered as they tried to look

into mine, I knew that I had both surprised and impressed her.

She recovered herself instantly, and made up her mind to hedge still

further. "If there is anything the matter with my heart, you are the

first to suspect it. My father, however, died of heart disease, and I

have--always--hoped that I should--die as suddenly. But I shall not! I

shall not! I am so--wiry--so all-enduring. I recover! I always recover!"

She said this passionately, and as if it were a grave misfortune--as if

she were very old. I pretended to take it humorously.

"Perhaps at your advanced age your father might have said the same."

She laughed. She saw a loophole, and immediately took it. "Oh, you think

I am very young, doctor, but I am not. People always think me younger

than I am--at first. I look older when you get used to me. I am nearly

thirty."