Mrs. Beresford looked at the doctor with very keen, eager eyes--eyes which had grown bigger and keener of late, perhaps from the failing of the round, smooth outlines of the face. She noticed that, though Maxwell saw very well that she was looking at him, he did not reply to those looks, but rather turned to her husband and answered him, as if he had not observed her at all. ‘I don’t mean to be at all disrespectful,’ he said; ‘there is a little disturbance of the system, which might turn to something as serious as you could desire, and take away the comfort of life perhaps more completely than a regular disease; but I hope that is not likely to happen here.’ ‘No; I don’t think it,’ said the easy man. ‘We shall try Baden, which is the prettiest--unless you prefer some other place; in short, we shall go off without guide or compass, and do exactly what pleases ourselves. We have done so, it must be allowed, pretty often before--but to do it with the sanction of the faculty----’ ‘And the child--as usual--will go to Sunninghill?’ ‘Why should you say as usual, Mr. Maxwell?’ said Mrs. Beresford, with a suspicion of offence. ‘Do you think I ought to take her with me? Do you suppose, perhaps, that I might not come back again--that I might never--see----’ ‘This is so unnecessary,’ said the doctor, remonstrating. ‘What must I say? I wish I was as certain of a thousand a year. You will come back quite well, I hope.’ ‘When people are very ill don’t you say much the same things to them? There was poor Susan Maitland, whom you banished to Italy to die. People talked of her coming back again. Oh, no! I am not thinking of myself, but of the subject in general. One needed only to look in her face to see that she would never come back.’ ‘People have different ideas of their duty,’ said Maxwell. ‘Some think it best not to frighten a patient with thoughts of death. I don’t know that one can lay down any rule; one is guided by circumstances. To some nervous people it is best not to say anything. Some are more frightened than others--just as some people are more susceptible to pain than others.’ ‘Now I am going to ask you another question,’ said Mrs. Beresford. ‘Suppose you had a patient very ill--I mean hopelessly ill, beyond all cure--do you think it is right to keep them alive as you do now, struggling to the last, staving off every new attack that might carry them off in quiet, fighting on and on to the last moment, and even prolonging that, when it comes so far, with cordials and stimulants? Keeping their breath in their poor, suffering bodies till you get to the end of your resources--your dreadful, cruel resources, that is what I call them. Do you think this is right? I had an aunt who died dreadfully--of cancer----’