"Brain fever, I reckon," said the porter. "I'll call a doctor."
In a few minutes Susan was gladdened by the sight of a young man wearing the familiar pointed beard and bearing the familiar black bag. He made a careful examination, asked her many questions, finally said:
"Your father has typhoid, I fear. He must be taken to a hospital."
"But we have very little money," said Susan.
"I understand," replied the doctor, marveling at the calmness of one so young. "The hospital I mean is free. I'll send for an ambulance."
While they were waiting beside Burlingham, whom the doctor had drugged into unconsciousness with a hypodermic, Susan said: "Can I go to the hospital and take care of him?"
"No," replied the doctor. "You can only call and inquire how he is, until he's well enough to see you."
"And how long will that be?"
"I can't say." He hadn't the courage to tell her it would be three weeks at least, perhaps six or seven.
He got leave of the ambulance surgeon for Susan to ride to the hospital, and he went along himself. As the ambulance sped through the dimly lighted streets with clanging bell and heavy pounding of the horse's hoofs on the granite pavement, Susan knelt beside Burlingham, holding one of his hot hands. She was remembering how she had said that she would die for him—and here it was he that was dying for her. And her heart was heavy with a load of guilt, the heaviest she was ever to feel in her life. She could not know how misfortune is really the lot of human beings; it seemed to her that a special curse attended her, striking down all who befriended her.