would have no desire to tell it. The old vague misery, the ancient
veiled torture, was behind her, and she was presently to suffer a new
torture--but also a joy for which men and women have borne unspeakable
things. No, Louise would never tell him the story of her life, because
now she knew it was a thing which must not be told. Her mind understood
things it had never known before. To be wise is to be secret, and she
had learned some wisdom; and the Young Doctor wondered if the greater
wisdom she must learn would be drunk from the cup of folly. Before he
left her he had said to her with meaning in his voice:

"My dear young madam, your recovery is too rapid. It is not a cure:
it is a miracle; and miracles are not easily understood. We must,
therefore, make them understood; and so you will take regularly three
times a day the powerful tonic I will give you."

She was about to interrupt him, but he waved a hand reprovingly and added
with kindly irony:

"Yes, we both know you don't need a tonic out of a bottle; but it's just
as well other people should think that the tonic bringing back the colour
to your cheeks comes out of a bottle and not out of a health resort,
called Slow Down Ranch, about four miles to the north-west of Tralee."

As he said this, he looked straight into the eyes which seemed, as it
were, to shrink into cover from what he was saying. But when, an instant
afterwards, he took her hand and said good-bye, he knew by the trembling
clasp of her fingers--even more appealing than they had yet been--that
she understood.

So it was a few moments later, outside the house, he had said to Joel