'My dear young lady——' he said, placing his hand kindly on Stella's shoulder. But then utterance failed him.
'Ah, you are deceiving me, you are—I can see it—you look at each other so strangely! Talbot,' she said, going up to her brother-in-law, 'you must tell me the whole truth. It is no use keeping it from me. Tell me what the doctor said?'
'The doctor——' began Tareling. 'The fact is, Stella, we—there is—in an attack like this—well, medical attendance is not usual; we—most men know what ought to be done; it is—er—a form of exhaustion.'
A conviction had seized Stella that Ted must have been dangerously hurt, and that all these blundering equivocations were well-merited efforts to break the news gently to her.
'Do you mean that you have not called in a doctor at all?' she said, looking from Morton to Tareling, and back again at Morton.
He, poor man! could do nothing but wipe his face, and crush his handkerchief into a minute compass.
'Stella dear, you may believe Talbot,' said Laurette once more. 'Everything has been done that is necessary. Ted will be all right when he wakes up a few hours later.'
'Wakes up?' repeated Stella, looking at the group around her with a sharp thrill of ill-defined terror. She saw that Morton was somehow the one most keenly affected. Laurette tried to cajole her. Talbot was infinitely gentle in his manner, yet confused as she had never seen him before; but John Morton's face was a picture of distress and yearning pity.
Going up to him, Stella laid her hand on his arm, and said in a firm voice:
'Mr. Morton, I insist upon knowing the truth. There is something you keep back from me. Tell me in one word, is Ted badly hurt? if not, what ails him? You know; I am sure you do.'