"Take her upstairs if you will, please. And, doctor, what mystery is there about this mishap? How did it occur? Patty, come hither."
The child opened her eyes again and half smiled.
"She will do now, I think; her pulse is stronger. Here is a small injury; nothing worse than a sprain, I think. She was run down on the ice. Our town goes crazy over a trifle now. The wrist is bruised and sprained. Patty, if you are the owner of so useful a name, undress the child, but I think she hath no broken bones."
The men retired to the adjoining room while Patty alternately scolded and petted her young charge.
"I hope you will reconsider your threat," said the doctor. "There are too many good uses for life to throw it away foolishly. If you are a King's man your life belongs to him, and is not to be wasted in a fit of temper."
Philemon Nevitt flushed with a sense of shame. He had been hotheaded, unreasonable.
There was no serious injury, they found. The bruised wrist was to be bound up with the old-fashioned remedy of wormwood and hot vinegar. And to-morrow Primrose would be all right again.
"Do you know this Allin Wharton?" Nevitt asked of Madam Wetherill.
"I know his family well, only young people have such a way of growing up that one loses track of them. He cannot be more than twenty. And words between you ought not to lead to any serious matter. You should have kept better watch of Primrose in such a crowd."
"I think I ought," he admitted frankly. "And I was hasty." He recalled the fact that he had given the insult, and that the other had the right to seek satisfaction. In London duels were common enough.