"Then what is it?"
The doctor's face grew redder still. Then, of a sudden, the words flew from him in a great gulp of woe.
"He told me, early this afternoon, what he claims to have known surely for a long, long time: that there is no chance for him to gain; that the lower part of his body is absolutely dead; that all our treatment, all our experimenting on it has not affected it at all; that, till the day he dies, he's bound to stay there just as you see him now, half of him perfectly well, half of him a senseless log."
Olive whitened, whitened. There came a faint blue line about her mouth, and her eyes glittered, hot and dry. Nevertheless,—
"You believe it?" she asked steadily.
"I didn't, at the first. In the end, he made me."
The white changed into gray, and the blue line widened.
"I'll go at once," she said briefly. "Please tell Mr. Ross I have been called out on an important errand."
For Olive Keltridge would not flinch, even in this present crisis. If Reed was in this final, consummating agony, and needed her, it was for her to go.
Five minutes later, the curate safely shunted to the front door and through it, the doctor came back again to Olive, a wine glass in his hand. She told him with a gesture that she preferred to be without it.