"Reed boy, I thought so." The doctor's hand, leaving the wrist, came to rest upon the nearer shoulder with a grip which was like a benediction. "It has been a fearful time of waiting. I wish I could tell you what the end will be; but—Reed, I can't."
"You mean you won't," Opdyke corrected him a little sharply.
But Doctor Keltridge forgave the sharpness, as his eyes rested on the drawn, white face.
"I mean I can't," he iterated. "Reed, that's the damned cruelty of the whole position, for you and for us who care for you. It would have been any amount easier to have accepted things at their worst, months ago, than to keep on in this grilling indecision, fearing everything and yet hanging on to every vestige of hope for something better. Don't think I haven't been realizing that, my boy, ever since they brought you in and tucked you up in that infernal bed. It wouldn't have been one half so hard for you, then, or since, if you'd known that you'd step down and out of it at any given time, or even that you were there to stay for ever. It's the uncertainty that kills. And that—"
"Well?" Reed asked him steadily.
"Is just as great as ever."
"You mean?"
The doctor straightened in his chair, stiffening himself to administer the bitter draught.
"That the dozen best surgeons in the country never could agree on it, whether you will come out of this thing, or not. All we can do is to grip our courage, and leave the matter—"
"On the knees of Allah?" Reed asked a little bitterly.