Harry English started. For the first time, that evening, discomposure laid hold of him.
"I? ... but I cannot go. She will want me."
"My dear sir," said the other, his tone softening into compassion (here was one who loved as few love, or he knew not how to read countenances), "this affair is very strange, but I, as doctor, am here to judge of nothing but the good of my patient. She has had a shock, and the shock has been caused by you. I repeat, all I can do here is to aid nature—nature demands repose. She is as one who has had concussion of the brain. That brain must rest. Call her back to thought, you may call her to death."
"I would sit in a corner of the room—she would not know."
"Ah," said the doctor, "one never can tell. That is a fallacy I have long since seen through. So long as the soul is there, my dear sir, many things take place inside the body that we know naught of."
Then Harry English submitted. He went forth with bent head.... He who had waited so long! lint, even as Aspasia had done, he halted to question:
"If she comes to consciousness?"
"She will not come to consciousness, perhaps, for days."
"If she wants me——?"
"My dear sir—immediately, of course."