Just as I was beginning to feel that the numbness must soon extend to my brain, the door opened and some one came quietly in.
My back was to the door, and so careful were the footsteps crossing the room that I could not tell who the newcomer was until I felt a firm hand gently unclasping my nervous fingers from Dicky's. Then I looked up into the solicitous face of Dr. Pettit.
"How is it that you have been left alone here so long?" he inquired indignantly, yet keeping his voice to the professional low pitch of a sick room. He put his strong, firm hands under my elbows, raised me to my feet and supported me to a chair, for my feet were like pieces of wood. I could hardly lift them.
"How long have you been kneeling there?" he demanded. "You would have fainted away if you had stayed there much longer."
"I do not know," I replied faintly, "but it doesn't matter. Tell me, is my husband all right, and how badly is he hurt?"
"He is not hurt seriously at all," the physician replied. "The bullet went through the fleshy part of his left arm. It was a clean wound, and he will be around again in no time."
He walked to Dicky's bed, bent over him, listened to his breathing, straightened, and came back to me.
"He is doing splendidly," he said, "but you are not. You are on the point of collapse from what you have undergone tonight. You must lie down at once. If there is no one else to take care of you, I must do it."
I felt as if I could not bear to answer him, even to raise my eyes to meet his. I do not know how long the intense silence would have continued. Just as I felt that I could not bear the situation any longer, Lillian Underwood came into the room, bringing with her, as she always does, an atmosphere of cheerful sanity.
"What is the matter?" she asked. Her tone was low and guarded, but in it there was a note of alarm, and the same anxiety shown from her eyes as she came swiftly toward me.