"Yes, doctor, it troubles me. I want to know what it means?"
"He has been sent here to keep your mother company."
She looked at him with reproachful earnestness, tried to shake her head, but the languid eyelids only drooped over the blue orbs fastened on his face, and, directly, tears began to swell under them.
"I heard people talking in the other room, doctor; what was it about?"
"I cannot tell you, not knowing what they said."
"They were talking about my baby."
The word broke out in a sob, and tears gushed through her trembling eyelashes. The doctor laid his hand on her head, and then the convulsion of her grief became heart-rending.
"Hush, child, hush! don't cry, don't cry—it will hurt you."
"Doctor, what—what did my baby die of?"
The doctor turned white with the pain and surprise of that question.