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Eyles, M. Leonora

"Captivity"

Another time she said that it was cowardly: Louis, in his
whisky days, had been seeking anesthesia from painful thoughts; she was
too proud to seek it for a painful body. She tried hard, too, to keep
shining Kraill's conception of her courage; she did not realize that he
would never know, however much she gave way: always, for her, he lived
just on the threshold of her consciousness.
One day when the doctor was sitting beside her and she had got out of a
maze of pain into a buoyant sea of bodily unconsciousness, she talked to
him about his letter in which he had grieved at his inadequacy. Then
she told him about Louis, and about Kraill, for she thought it might
encourage him to know how the miracle of healing had come about.
"He wrote to me this morning, doctor," she said. "Will you feel under my
pillow and get the letter? I know he wouldn't mind your reading it."
The doctor unfolded the thick bundle of pages and read--and as he read
he saw that the words were all blurred by tears, and guessed that they
were certainly not tears shed by the exuberant young man who had written
the letter.
"Three cheers, old girl. The week of torture is past! I know I got
through. I simply sailed through. My brain is a fifty times better
machine than it was seven years ago. And they're accommodating at these
Scotch medical schools.


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