"As I said, fever cannot be sent by Divine Love," she remarked, "and therefore, since there is nothing really existent in the world except Divine Love, it follows that fever cannot be real, and that the belief in it is a function of mortal mind. No evil or pain or disease can happen to anybody who has uprooted the false claim of mortal mind, and no drug can have any effect, either harmful or beneficial, on anyone who knows the truth. The drug only acts on mortal mind, which is----" Thurso entered the arena. "I want to understand, Alice," he said. "Supposing I choose to drink large quantities of prussic acid for breakfast, under the conviction that no poison exists for Immortal Mind, shall I live to take pints more of it at lunch? Doesn't poison exist for mortal body?" "'If you drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt you,'" quoted Alice. "Soufflé of nightshade for Alice this evening," said Maud cheerfully. Theodosia had been keeping up a general chattering noise, to which no one listened. Now she had her chance. "My!" she said. "You'd better become a Christian Scientist at once, Silas. Silas adores--he just adores--English beer, but he has a false claim that it disagrees with him. Now Mrs. Yardly tells us that there's no such thing as poison. So, Silas, just take tight hold of that, and get a barrel. I may be left a widow, but try--just swill it." "Theodosia," began Silas; but he was not permitted to get further. "But intoxicant drinks are in themselves evil things," said Alice, "just as tobacco, which is only fed upon by a loathsome worm, is evil, as you will find in Mrs. Eddy's miscellaneous writings. She has pronounced against them." "But I thought there was no evil except in the false belief of mortal mind?" said Maud. "That is just what I have been saying," said Alice profusely. "The only real existence is God, who is cause, source, origin, overlies and underlies and encompasses." Rudolf Villars joined in. "And if Mrs. Eddy said that cream-cheese was evil, would that make it so?" he asked politely. "Cannot she have attacks of error and mortal mind? Is it not just possible, as Oliver Cromwell said, that she is occasionally? I should have thought that instances might be found where intoxicants had even saved life in cases of exhaustion or exposure." Maud broke in again. "You are all very flippant," she said. "It really does not matter what Mrs. Eddy thinks about tobacco, or whether darling Alice will not answer our questions. But I did see--and I stick to it--a man who was past human power pulled back into life by Mr. Cochrane. How it was done I don't know, but his own explanation was a perfectly simple one. He said it was the direct healing power of God. After all, if we and doctors say that there are healing powers in certain herbs which God made, why shouldn't He heal direct?" The throb of a motor and the sound of its wheels crunching the gravel was heard, and Thurso got up.