“No! I must be with my father!” she insisted. “He will need me when he—when he revives. Please let me go to him!”
The captain saw that it was of little use to oppose her so he led her back toward the throng that was still about the prostrate player. A clubman was hurrying back with a young man who carried a small black bag.
“They've got a doctor, I think,” said Gerry. “Not Dr. Rowland, though. However, I dare say it will be all right.”
A fit of trembling seized Viola, and it was so violent that, for a moment, Captain Poland thought she would fall. He had to hold her close, and he wished there was some place near at hand to which he might take her. But the clubhouse was some distance away, and there were no conveyances within call.
However, Viola soon recovered her composure, or at least seemed to, and smiled up at him, though there was no mirth in it.
“I'll be all right now,” she said. “Please take me to him. He will ask for me as soon as he recovers.”
The young doctor had made his way through the throng and now knelt beside the prostrate man. The examination was brief—a raising of the eyelids, an ear pressed over the heart, supplemented by the use of the stethoscope, and then the young medical man looked up, searching the ring of faces about him as though seeking for some one in authority to whom information might be imparted. Then he announced, generally:
“He is dead.”
“Dead!” exclaimed several.
“Hush!” cautioned Harry Bartlett “She'll hear you!”