"Billy! My dear old William!"
That was all the doctor heard. Then he brushed his hand across his eyes and stole away out of the room. Alone in the kitchen, he wiped his eyes again and blew his nose violently.
"That tells the story," he muttered to himself. "I wish there were more such marriages. But I thought for one while that there wasn't much chance for him." Then he shrugged his shoulders and put on his most professional manner, as he went back to his patient.
"Stop your lovering, Ted, and give him another drink of this. Lie where you are, for half an hour, Billy; then let Teddy tuck you up warm in bed and sleep it off. You did a fine thing, a mighty fine thing, and Hope will have something to say to you in the morning."
"All right, thank you, only rather stiff in the joints, so the doctor advised me to keep still, to-day," Billy said to Gifford Barrett, the next night.
The young man had met Hubert on the beach, that morning; but apparently he could be satisfied by no second-hand report from the Lodge. In the late twilight, he came strolling up to the seaward porch where he found Billy stretched out at his ease on a bamboo couch, and the others grouped around him, in full tide of family gossip.
"Then you are really none the worse for your ducking?" Mr. Barrett asked, as he took the chair that Theodora offered him.
"Rather stiff, and a bruise or two, nothing to count at all."
"And the boy?"
"Lively as a sand flea."