Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/307

. . . . and he would place his hands over his eyes and then take them away and laugh with the joy of a heart too full for utterance. Think of the myriad things we see which go to waste! My word, it makes one wish to treasure the image of each passing object. . . ."

"And now, Doctor, I will tell you the rest, and then you shall tell me if I was a fool to answer him so truthfully; in my own mind I have never been quite sure.

"Three days saw the end of his period of frantic and agonized depression, for his stoicism and self-control abandoned him as soon as I removed the balm of a voluntary death. In this time he would see none of us; would eat because he had determined to live; but one could see that a word of comfort, of sympathy, would be infuriating. Next came a week of apathy while the wound was granulating . . . inside and out. What is it, Doctor, which regulates the duration of violent pain when its cause still persists? In the case of this newly [ 291 ]