“He is our only child,” answered Mr. Temple.
“Ah—that is sad, but there is no doubt football is a dangerous game.”
“How—how long will he be spared to us?” now inquired Mr. Temple with quivering lips.
“He will drift away probably during the night, or in the small hours of the morning. He will not regain consciousness; the injury to the base of the brain is too severe.”
The great surgeon only stayed a few minutes longer in the grief-stricken household after this, and then was driven away. And when he was gone, with a heavy sigh—almost a moan—Mr. Temple began to ascend the staircase, and on the first landing a lady was standing waiting for him with terrible anxiety written on her pale face.
Mr. Temple looked up when he saw her, and shook his head, and as he did this the lady sprang forward and gripped his hand.
“What did he say?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.
“Come in here, my poor Rachel,” he answered gently, and as he spoke he led her forward into a room on the landing, the door of which chanced to be open, and then closed it behind them. “My dear—I grieve very much to say—Sir Henry’s opinion is not very favorable.”
His voice broke and faltered as he said these words, and a sort of gasping sigh escaped the lady’s lips as she listened to them.
“What did he say?” she repeated, with her eyes fixed in a wild stare on Mr. Temple’s face.