Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“ When at last he did go upstairs he found an envelope addressed to himself on his bureau.
“My own dearest Lionel: I have gone away for just a little while, because I have a plan to help us all. Stay where you are, and I shall be able to send you some money very soon. Don’t worry; everything will soon be all right, and we shall be all together again. Take care of yourself, dearest. Your loving, loving wife, Minnie. P.S.—There is a delicious meat pie for you in the ice box.” ”

“ Indeed, he developed a faith in Tonico-Therapy which no one—not even Minnie or Doctor Peters, suspected. He studied the course diligently, trying his utmost to understand and assimilate the farrago of nonsense in the pamphlets. He was too ignorant of physiology and chemistry to detect some of the grossest blunders, and he really fancied he was mastering a sort of profession.
At the end of the ten weeks he received a diploma and a great deal of congratulation and good advice from the “Dean,” a white-haired old reprobate with a perpetual grin ”

“ The war seemed to offer Lionel a remarkable opportunity for carrying out his plan with dignity and nobility. He might even get himself killed, which, according to his tradition, rights every wrong, wipes out every offense. He resisted Minnie’s objections with firmness. ”

“ He was devoutly thankful that his “system” required practically no examining; he had simply to record and classify the symptoms as told him, and then retire somewhere to consult his hand-book of Tonico-Therapy, which would tell him what the disease was and what the remedy. He hoped—he even went so far as to pray—that the patients would all be men.
On the day after the advertisement appeared, his first patient came. From the window he saw her mounting the steps, and he had a sort of paroxysm of fright. He wanted to hide. But Minnie had let her in, and there she was knocking at the door. ”

“ He recalled stories he had read of beach-combers, all sorts of derelicts drifting through strange countries, and it occurred to him that they were probably people like himself, who had loved fine living, who had been fastidious, who couldn’t adjust themselves to what was poor and ugly. And they were, he reflected, always saved in the end by some woman. Never by a woman in the least like Minnie ”

“ III In the next six months he had just seven patients. Summer was coming on again, and they hadn’t a penny. He himself was shabby and cowed, the little girl was so ragged that the neighbours’ children were told to avoid her. Minnie was reduced to big aprons. They were hungry and wretched, hounded by creditors, suffering from the intolerable restraints of poverty. Lionel hadn’t even cigarettes. He pulled down the sign and went about looking for work again. Without success. He was the least desirable sort of worker there was. ”

“ Simply another piece of her tiresome chicanery; posing as someone’s wife to make herself more important, or something of that sort. Treachery to himself he never suspected, or that she could possibly be actually guilty of bigamy.... ”