“No, Eunice; it has to be. Keep quiet, dear. It can do no good for you to get all wrought up, and if you’d go and lie down—”
“For heaven’s sake, stop telling me to go and lie down! If one more person says that to me I shall just perfectly fly!”
“Now, Eunice,” began Aunt Abby, “it’s only for your own good, dear. You are all excited and nervous—”
“Of course, I am! Who wouldn’t be? Mason,” she looked around at the concerned faces, “I believe you understand me best. You know I don’t want to go and lie down, don’t you?”
“Stay where you are, child,” Elliott smiled kindly at her. “Of course, you’re nervous and upset—all you can do is to try to hold yourself together—and don’t try that too hard, either—for you may defeat your own ends thereby. Just wait, Eunice; sit still and wait.”
They all waited, and after what seemed an interminable time the Examiner reappeared and the other two doctors with him.
“Well, well,” Crowell began, his restless hands twisting themselves round each other. “Now, be quiet, Mrs. Embury—I declare, I don’t know how to say what I have to say, if you sit there like a chained tiger—”
“Go on!” Eunice now seemed to usurp something of Crowell’s own dictatorship. “Go on, Dr. Crowell!”
“Well, ma’am, I will. But there’s not much to tell. Our principal evidence is lack of evidence—”
“What do you mean?” cried Eunice. “Talk English, please!”