But Miss Randall would not have that. "Please don't mind him, Mr. Flood; I want to hear the rest of it."
Again Flood was taken unawares, and his face flushed; but he went on to describe the evening before the doctor's fire, the four days he had remained, a willing guest, the drives about the mountains in the doctor's buggy—lest his own car should startle the shy mountain people.
"And since I've got back, I've been finding out about him. You know how it is—meet a chap you never heard of before, and straightway find out that a dozen people you know have known him for years.
"Last night I met Doctor Hiram Wilson in the club; he said it was the first time he'd had a chance to run in for months, yet he happened to be the first man I saw there. I was telling him something about this chap, and found he knew all about him. 'Keenest young investigator I ever knew,' he said, 'and came near working himself to death. How is he now?' He seemed mighty glad when I told him I could not have suspected that Ogilvie had ever been ill. Then he called Professor Grayson over, to repeat what I'd just told him; and I wish you could have seen old Grayson's face. He was delighted, but he could really tell more about Ogilvie than I could. It seems that Ogilvie was under him for a time, but had really gone far beyond him; then he made himself ill by working day and night in his laboratory, and some of his medical friends packed him off to those mountains to get well. He was too far gone to protest, I guess; but before he was well enough to come back, he was so interested in the people there that he was willing to stay. Now the big fellows have fallen into the way of sending patients down to Bluemont, in the summer, to be near him; and he consults everywhere all over the country. They told me last night that his investigations and experiments on the nervous system would do more to save the vision than——"
But Miss Randall, at the word, exclaimed, and with parted lips and brightening eyes leaned towards him. Flood stopped, amazed.
"Vision! His work is for vision? For the eyes?" she cried.
"His experimental work. Of course, in the mountains——"
But Mrs. Maxwell was tired of Flood's enthusiasm. "Dear me! She is going to tell him about Eleanor! Take pity on me, Marshall, and help me to escape!" she exclaimed, jumping up.
But her sister was far too deeply interested to be aware of their withdrawing towards the window. "Oh, Mr. Flood, is he really successful? Can he really help?"
"I am told, and I believe, that he is a great man, Miss Randall. But surely——"