Page:Guy Boothby - The Beautiful White Devil.djvu/110



days exactly after my taking charge of the health of the settlement, the last patient was discharged from the hospital, cured. Out of one hundred and ninety-five cases treated, one hundred and thirty-three had recovered; the rest lay in the little graveyard on the hillside to the eastward of the town. It had been a weary, harassing time from beginning to end, and the strain and responsibility had had a more severe effect upon me than I should have anticipated. Alie alone, of all the workers, seemed untouched. Her indomitable will would not permit her body to know such a thing as fatigue, and for this reason the last day of our work found her powers as keen and her energy as unabated as they had been on the first.

On the afternoon of the day following the discharge of my last patient, she came into the surgery, and, seating herself in my armchair, looked about her with that interest my medical affairs always seemed to inspire in her.

"Dr. De Normanville," she began, clasping her little white hands together on the arm of the chair; "I have been watching you lately, and I have come to the conclusion that you are thoroughly tired out. There is but one cure for that—rest and complete change of air and scene."