Thrice a day had the doctor come to Vailholme since he and Thaxton had borne the unconscious Clive thither from Rackrent Farm. A nurse had been summoned, and for forty-eight hours she and Lawton had wrought over the senseless man.
This morning Clive had awakened. But, by the nurse’s stern orders, he had not been allowed to talk or even to see his housemates until the doctor should arrive.
For an hour Lawton had been closeted with the invalid. The others greeted his descent from the sickroom in eager excitement.
“Well? Well? How is he?” demanded Miss Gregg with the imperious note Lawton detested, firing her queries before the doctor was fairly in the study. “Is he sane? Did he know you? Speak up, man!”
“Sane?” echoed the doctor a bit testily. “Of course he’s sane. Why shouldn’t he be? He always was, even in the old days. And why shouldn’t he remember me? Didn’t I bring him into the world? And haven’t I just brought him back into it?”
“Ezra Lawton!” snapped the old lady, indignant at his tone. “You must have been born boorish and exasperating. Nobody could have acquired so much boorishness and crankiness in seventy short years. You’re—”
“Auntie!” begged Doris. “Please! Doctor, we’ve been waiting so anxiously! Won’t you tell us all about him? We—”
Dr. Lawton thawed at her pleading voice and look.
“The nurse tells me he came out of the coma clear-headed and apparently quite himself—except, of course, for much weakness,” he replied, pointedly addressing the girl and ignoring her glowering aunt. “By the time I got here he was a little stronger. Yet I didn’t encourage him to talk or to excite himself in any way. However, he seemed so restless when I told him to lie still and be quiet that I thought it would do him less harm to ask and answer questions than to lie there and fume with impatience. So I told him—a little. And I let him tell me—a little.”
He paused. Miss Gregg glowered afresh. Doris clasped her hands in appeal. Lawton resumed: