"You think so, Mr. Opdyke? So long as you will not believe, you will not throw off your weakness of the body. You must face disease, not yield to it. You must lift yourself above it, must plant your feet upon it in firm disdain, and, using it as a footstool, arise from its ugly foundations to a perfect and sinless state of health." Again she paused, and fixed her rapt gaze upon his face which slowly was reddening and stiffening into something closely akin to a blinding rage. "Mr. Opdyke, believe me: your poor, broken body is only the outer guise of your erring mind. Dismiss your error; throw yourself unresistingly into the vast and placid pool of the Cosmic Ego, and you will arise from your bed of pain, a cured and healthy man." A little vein beside Reed's temple swelled slightly and began to throb. It seemed to him that this impossible woman was tearing his nerves apart in a remorseless effort to get at the inmost secrets of his consciousness. By all the laws of self-preservation, he had every right to drive her from the room. By all the laws of chivalrous courtesy, he must lie there, prostrate, at her mercy, and listen to her with an unflinching smile, until the wheels of her enthusiasm should run down--if, indeed, they ever did. "I am afraid, Mrs. Brenton," he was beginning as suavely as he was able. Katharine, however, interrupted him. "Mr. Opdyke," she demanded, with a sort of religious sternness; "have you ever faced disease?" "I was under the impression that I had," he answered curtly. "Looked it steadily between the eyes, I mean; sought to impress it with your mental dominance? Disease is a coward, we are told, a coward who leaves us, when it knows we feel no fear of it. If you just once would assert your manliness, not lie there, supine, and--" "Mr. Hopdyke," Ramsdell's voice said from the threshold; "Doctor Keltridge is downstairs, and is very anxious to see you about something most important. What shall I tell 'im?" Reed, his temples throbbing now in good earnest, smothered a _Thank God_, and turned to smile at Ramsdell. Ramsdell met the smile with impenetrable gravity. None the less, a look in the tail of his eye set Opdyke wondering whether, indeed, the message from the doctor was quite the accident it seemed. "Send him up, of course, Ramsdell. Doctor Keltridge is too busy a man to be kept waiting," he said briefly. To his extreme surprise, Katharine took the hint and rose. "And I must go, Mr. Opdyke. It has been such a pleasant time for me, this little talk with you. Some day, perhaps you will let me come again. Meanwhile, you really will be thinking over some of the things I've said?" "Very likely," Reed answered rather shortly, as once more the hoptoad of a hand rested unpleasantly close to his shoulder. "It's not a thing one is likely to forget."