They watched the doctor bare the terribly scalded body, examine it, listen to the boy's breathing, count his pulse. In the end he re-dressed the tiny body with stuff from the case with which a country physician goes armed against all emergencies. He was very deliberate and thoughtful. Stella looked her appeal when he finished.
"He's a sturdy little chap," he said, "and we'll do our best. A child frequently survives terrific shock. It would be mistaken kindness for me to make light of his condition simply to spare your feelings. He has an even chance. I shall stay until morning. Now, I think it would be best to lay him on a bed. You must relax, Mrs. Fyfe. I can see that the strain is telling on you. You mustn't allow yourself to get in that abnormal condition. The baby is not conscious of pain. He is not suffering half so much in his body as you are in your mind, and you mustn't do that. Be hopeful. We'll need your help. We should have a nurse, but there was no time to get one."
They laid Jack Junior amid downy pillows on Stella's bed. The doctor stood looking at him, then drew a chair beside the bed.
"Go and walk about a little, Mrs. Fyfe," he advised, "and have your dinner. I'll want to watch the boy a while."
But Stella did not want to walk. She did not want to eat. She was scarcely aware that her limbs were cramped and aching from her long vigil in the chair. She was not conscious of herself and her problems, any more. Every shift of her mind turned on her baby, the little mite she had nursed at her breast, the one joy untinctured with bitterness that was left her. The bare chance that those little feet might never patter across the floor again, that little voice never wake her in the morning crying "Mom-mom," drove her distracted.
She went out into the living room, walked to a window, stood there drumming on the pane with nervous fingers. Dusk was falling outside; a dusk was creeping over her. She shuddered.
Fyfe came up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, and turned her so that she faced him.
"I wish I could help, Stella," he whispered. "I wish I could make you feel less forlorn. Poor little kiddies—both of you."
She shook off his hands, not because she rebelled against his touch, against his sympathy, merely because she had come to that nervous state where she scarce realized what she did.
"Oh," she choked, "I can't bear it. My baby, my little baby boy. The one bright spot that's left, and he has to suffer like that. If he dies, it's the end of everything for me."