We retraced our way over the Church Ridge, and I arrived at Dr. Heatherlegh’s house shortly after midnight.

His attempts towards my cure commenced almost immediately, and for a week I never left his sight.  Many a time in the course of that week did I bless the good fortune which had thrown me in contact with Simla’s best and kindest doctor.  Day by day my spirits grew lighter and more equable.  Day by day, too, I became more and more inclined to fall in with Heatherlegh’s “spectral illusion” theory, implicating eyes, brain, and stomach.  I wrote to Kitty, telling her that a slight sprain caused by a fall from my horse kept me indoors for a few days; and that I should be recovered before she had time to regret my absence.

Heatherlegh’s treatment was simple to a degree.  It consisted of liver-pills, cold-water baths and strong exercise, taken in the dusk or at early dawn—­for, as he sagely observed:  “A man with a sprained ankle doesn’t walk a dozen miles a day, and your young woman might be wondering if she saw you.”

At the end of the week, after much examination of pupil and pulse and strict injunctions as to diet and pedestrianism, Heatherlegh dismissed me as brusquely as he had taken charge of me.  Here is his parting benediction:  “Man, I certify to your mental cure, and that’s as much as to say I’ve cured most of your bodily ailments.  Now, get your traps out of this as soon as you can; and be off to make love to Miss Kitty.”

I was endeavoring to express my thanks for his kindness.  He cut me short: 

“Don’t think I did this because I like you.  I gather that you’ve behaved like a blackguard all through.  But, all the same you’re a phenomenon, and as queer a phenomenon as you are a blackguard.  Now, go out and see if you can find the eyes-brain-and-stomach business again.  I’ll give you a lakh for each time you see it.”

Half an hour later I was in the Mannerings’ drawing-room with Kitty—­drunk with the intoxication of present happiness and the foreknowledge that I should never more be troubled with It’s hideous presence.  Strong in the sense of my new-found security, I proposed a ride at once; and, by preference, a canter round Jakko.

Never have I felt so well, so overladen with vitality and mere animal spirits as I did on the afternoon of the 30th of April.  Kitty was delighted at the change in my appearance, and complimented me on it in her delightfully frank and outspoken manner.  We left the Mannerings’ house together, laughing and talking, and cantered along the Chota Simla road as of old.

I was in haste to reach the Sanjowlie Reservoir and there make my assurance doubly sure.  The horses did their best, but seemed all too slow to my impatient mind.  Kitty was astonished at my boisterousness.  “Why, Jack!” she cried at last, “you are behaving like a child!  What are you doing?”

We were just below the Convent, and from sheer wantonness I was making my Waler plunge and curvet across the road as I tickled it with the loop of my riding-whip.