“Here,” said Uncle Alfred to Gladys, who wrote a large, round-hand signature, and went away again looking awed.
“Now you can order me to bed if you like,” said the old man indifferently. “I doubt I shall ever rise from it again, but that boy of poor Rose’s, and this war, between them, have done for me.”
After a very brief examination, Dr. Lucian spoke: “You’re quite right, I’m going to order you into bed. And I want you to let me send round a nurse, who’ll take all trouble off your hands and do just what you tell her.”
“She’ll be the first one of her calling who ever did any such thing, then,” Uncle Alfred disbelievingly remarked. “No, no, I don’t want strange hussies at my bedside; I’ve got no money to throw away on that sort of rubbish.”
“Then send for your niece.” The doctor neatly made the point at which he had been aiming.
“That would be less expensive, by a great deal. Only her keep, though Rose always did have a very hearty appetite. But she’s a good girl—I’m fond of Rose. She can come if she likes. It’ll give her something to think about, now the boy’s gone.”
The doctor wrote that night to Rose. When he came the following evening to see his patient, she met him on the threshold of Uncle Alfred’s room. He took her hand in silence, looking at the tiny lines round her mouth that the last few weeks had traced there.
“Is he very bad?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Going to die?” Rose whispered. “He says himself that he won’t get well again.”