With wide-eyed anxiety, Graham, having driven straight back, waited for the doctor's verdict. The two young men stood alone in the little sitting-room. With a touch of delicacy, which they were quick to notice, Nellie Pope made no attempt to follow them in.
"Um!" said Dr. Harding. "A very close shave from pneumonia. He can't be moved yet, unless, of course, you'd like me to send for an ambulance. That's up to you."
Graham shook his head. "No," he said. "I don't want that. I think he'd better be—I mean I don't want my father—Oh, well, I dare say you understand."
"Yes," said Dr. Harding, "I'm afraid I do. God knows what the percentage of disaster is from men having soused themselves like that. It seems to me that your brother, who had obviously caught a severe chill, must have set out deliberately to make himself drunk, and mixed everything in sight."
Graham held his peace. But his blood tingled at the knowledge that he had given Kenyon something that he would never forget and which would make it necessary for him to remain in the seclusion of his state-room for some days at least.
The young doctor sat down and wrote a prescription and went on quickly to tell Graham what to do. Finally he rose. "I'll look in again this evening," he said. "You'll be here, won't you? Of course we shall get him all right in a couple of days or so,—that is, right enough to go home,—but——"
"But what?" asked Graham.
"Well," said Dr. Harding, "I may have to leave the rest of the treatment to your father." He shook his head several times on his way to the door. He had taken one or two close, examining looks of Nellie Pope.
"Mr. Guthrie, you're wanted."
Graham turned sharply. Nellie Pope, waiting until the doctor had gone, put her head in at the door. "Come on in," she said. "Come on in!"