He asked a lot of questions, and when I finished he said gravely, "You have done very right in telling me of this; the knowledge of this former attack and his symptoms will help me in treating your brother's case."
"Is it the same trouble?" I asked eagerly.
"Certain symptoms which you have described point that way," he answered; "but of course I can say nothing until I have seen and examined him."
"Could such an accident"—I'd told him that Fee had struck his back against a chair and then fallen—"do anybody—harm?" My heart was thumping as I put the question.
"Under some circumstances, serious harm," the doctor said. And just then—before I could say anything more—we came to our stoop, and there was Hannah holding the door open for us to go in.
The doctor turned every one out of Fee's room but Phil and nurse; and he was in there an awful long time. And while Nonie and I sat on the upper stairs waiting for news, what did I do but fall asleep! and I didn't wake up until the next morning, when I found myself in my own bed. It seems that Phil had undressed and put me to bed, though I didn't remember a thing about it. I felt dreadfully ashamed to have gone to sleep without hearing how Fee was, but you see I was so dead tired, that I suppose I really couldn't keep awake.
Did you ever wake up in the morning with a strange sort of feeling as if there was a weight on your heart, and then remember that something dreadful had happened the night before? Well, then you know just how I felt the morning after Fee got hurt. For a moment or two I tried to make myself believe it was all a bad dream; but there sat Phil on the edge of our bed, and the sight of his wretched white face brought back the whole thing only too plainly.
"Oh! how is Fee?" I exclaimed, sitting up in bed. "What does the doctor say about him?"
Phil's elbow was resting on his knee, his chin in his palm. "The doctor says," he answered, with, oh! such a look of misery in his tired eyes, "that Felix is not in danger of death, but it looks now as if he might not be able to walk again!"