"Nobody knows the agony this is to me," Jean exclaimed in a tragic voice. "Feel my heart, it's beating so."
"Go and feel Mabel's," said Elma. "I expect it's thumping as hard as yours. And she got Cuthbert's bed ready. She really is the leader of this family. There's something more in it than putting up one's hair."
The doctors came down much more merrily than they went up, and joined in the dining-room in coffee and dessert while Harry stayed with the patient.
Mr. Leighton seemed very deeply moved. The thing had hurt him more than he ventured to say. A remembrance of the white look on his son's face, the appearance of the huddled figure in the cab, and the anxiety of not knowing for a few moments how bad the injury might be, had given him a great shock. His children were so deeply a part of his life, their welfare of so much more consequence than his own, that it seemed dreadful to him that his splendid manly young son had been suddenly hurt--perhaps beyond remedy. Mrs. Leighton used to remark that she had always been very thankful that none of her children had ever been dangerously ill, her husband suffered so acutely from even a trifling illness undergone by one of them. Now she gazed at him rather anxiously.
Mr. Maclean told them at last how it had happened. Cuthbert had done something rather heroic. Mr. Maclean recounted it, it seemed to Elma, in the tone of a man who thought very little of the reckless way in which Cuthbert had risked his life, until she discovered afterwards that he as well as Cuthbert had made a dash to the rescue.
It was a case of a runaway bicycle, with no brakes working, and a girl on it, terror-stricken, trying to evade death on the Long Hill. Cuthbert had rushed down to her. Cuthbert had gripped the saddle, and was putting some strength into his brakes, and actually reaching nearly a full stop, when the girl swayed and fainted. They were both thrown, but the girl was quite unhurt. Something had hit Cuthbert on the side and broken three ribs.
Mabel stared straight at Mr. Maclean.
"Where were you?" she asked.
Mr. Maclean looked gravely at her. "I was somewhere about," he said with unnecessary vagueness.
"Then you tried to save the girl too," said Elma with immediate conviction. She greatly admired Mr. Maclean, and resented the manner of Mabel's question. "How beautiful of you both," she exclaimed enthusiastically.