Dick Kearney had written to say that Miss Betty was so overwhelmed with affliction at young Gorman’s mishap that she had taken to bed, and could not be expected to be able to travel for several days. She insisted, however, on two telegrams daily to report on the boy’s case, and asked which of the great Dublin celebrities of physic should be sent down to see him.
‘They’re all alike to me,’ said Kilgobbin; ‘but if I was to choose, I think I’d say Dr. Chute.’
This was so far unlucky, since Dr. Chute had then been dead about forty years; scarcely a junior of the profession having so much as heard his name.
‘We really want no one,’ said Rogan. ‘We are doing most favourably in every respect. If one of the young ladies would sit and read to him, but not converse, it would be a service. He made the request himself this morning, and I promised to repeat it.’
A telegram, however, announced that Sir St. Xavier Brennan would arrive the same evening, and as Sir X. was physician-in-chief to the nuns of the Bleeding Heart, there could be little doubt whose orthodoxy had chosen him.
He came at nightfall—a fat, comely-looking, somewhat unctuous gentleman, with excellent teeth and snow-white hands, symmetrical and dimpled like a woman’s. He saw the patient, questioned him slightly, and divined without waiting for it what the answer should be; he was delighted with Rogan, pleased with Price, but he grew actually enthusiastic over those charming nurses, Nina and Kate.
‘With such sisters of charity to tend me, I’d consent to pass my life as an invalid,’ cried he.
Indeed, to listen to him, it would seem that, whether from the salubrity of the air, the peaceful quietude of the spot, the watchful kindness and attention of the surrounders, or a certain general air—an actual atmosphere of benevolence and contentment around—there was no pleasure of life could equal the delight of being laid up at Kilgobbin.
‘I have a message for you from my old friend Miss O’Shea,’ said he to Kate the first moment he had the opportunity of speaking with her alone. ‘It is not necessary to tell you that I neither know, nor desire to know, its import. Her words were these: “Tell my godchild to forgive me if she still has any memory for some very rude words I once spoke. Tell her that I have been sorely punished for them since, and that till I know I have her pardon, I have no courage to cross her doors.” This was my message, and I was to bring back your answer.’
‘Tell her,’ cried Kate warmly, ‘I have no place in my memory but for the kindnesses she has bestowed on me, and that I ask no better boon from Fortune than to be allowed to love her, and to be worthy of her love.’