The Doctor had divined a good deal during this last quarter of an hour, in this stricken woman, this abruptly speaking man, he felt the close presence of something he fully believed in, old though he was—overwhelming love; placed as they were, it could bring only unhappiness. He had no confidence whatever in Winthrop, simply because he was a man. In such situations men were selfish (he himself should have been no better); of course at the time they did not call it selfishness, they called it devotion. But in Margaret his confidence was absolute. And it was with a deep, tender pity for her, for all she had still to go through, that he now bent over her.
Winthrop had gone down-stairs; he paced to and fro in the stone-flagged hall below. The door stood open, the deep soft blue of the Florida sky filled the square frame. "If only she doesn't die!" This was the paralyzing dread that held him like a suffocation. He kept thinking how like a dead person she had looked as he laid her down. "If she comes to,—revives, I will go away, and stay away." In his fear, he could consent to anything.
The Doctor came down after a while. They were two men together, so their words were few; they were just enough to answer the purpose. "I think I can assure you that she will come out of it safely," the Doctor said. "She seems unaccountably weak, she will have to keep her bed for a while; but I am almost positive that it is not going to be one of those long illnesses which sometimes follow attacks of this sort."
"But at best it's rather serious, isn't it?" Winthrop asked.
The Doctor looked at him. "Yes," he answered, gravely.
"If you would let me know from time to time? This is my New York address. It will be more satisfactory to hear directly from you. You can tell her I have gone."
"Gone?"
"Yes; back to New York."
"Oh," said Reginald Kirby. Then, "Ah," he added, this time with the accepting falling inflection.
Winthrop was behaving much better than he had thought he would. All the same, it was now the part of every one to speed him on his way. "I will write with great regularity," he said, extending his hand in good-by. "I will write three times a week," he added, with heartiness; he wanted to do something for the man, and this was all he could do.