The woman I love is a woman forbidden to me while I suffer as I suffer now.

Realize that--and then fancy you see a man sitting at this table here, with pen, ink, and paper before him, who has only to scribble a line or two, and to begin the cure of you from that moment.

Deliverance in a few months from the horror of the fits; marriage in a few months to the woman you love.

That heavenly prospect in exchange for the hellish existence that you are enduring now.

And the one price to pay for it, a discolored face for the rest of your life--which the one person who is dearest to you will never see?
Would you have hesitated?
When the doctor took up the pen to write the prescription--tell me, if you had been in my place, would you have said, No ?" I still sat silent.