"Temporary, did you say? Only temporary?" the boy was faltering.
"I hope so, honestly. You see, it was just on that one point ... and even there ... I believe he did want his wife out of the way, and for her own sake, too!" said Dollar, with a sympathetic tremor of his own.
"But do you know what he's saying? He means to tell the whole world now, and let them hang him, and serve him right—he says! And he's as sane as we are now—only he might have been through a Turkish bath!"
"More signs!" cried Dollar, looking up at the brightening sky. "But we won't allow that. It would undo nothing and he has made all the reparation.
" ... Come, Paley! I want to take him back with me in the car. It's broad daylight."
VII
THE DOCTOR'S ASSISTANT
The doctor was coping with his Sunday meal when the telephone went off in the next room. On his ears the imperious summons never fell without a thrill; in his sight, the tulip-shaped receiver became a live thing trumpeting for help; and he would answer the call himself, at any hour of the day or night. It was necessary at night, with the Bartons asleep in the basement like a family in a vault, but it was just the same when they were all on duty, as at the present moment. Back went the Cromwellian chair, at the head of the bare and solitary trestle table. An excited personage, who might have been just outside the window, was expeditiously appeased in monosyllables. And Dollar returned with an appetite to what had been set before him.