"What is all this about?" he demanded as he stepped out. At the sound of his authoritative voice the cowards took to their heels, and Bert emerged from their midst with a bleeding face and torn clothing.
"What have they done to you? Let me see," said the doctor, in sharp but not unkindly tones. "Why do you go with such boys as those? You did something to provoke them, I suppose?"
"I only told them to move on because my sister was asleep, and I did not want them to wake her," said Bert.
"Ah, and they did not choose to be commanded by you?" said the doctor. "Well, I advise you to be more diplomatic the next time you hold parley with the enemy. But now wash the blood from your face, and I'll put a piece of plaster over that cut for you. Oh, you live here, do you? So, I see it is your sister I am attending."
Bert wondered that the doctor should not know him again. He followed him down the dirty steps of the area. In a few minutes Bert's face was dressed, and the doctor turned his attention to the sleeping child, whom the noises without had failed to rouse.
"Please, sir, is she better?" asked Bert anxiously.
"She is," said the doctor decidedly, when he had made his examination, only partially waking the girl in doing so; "she really is better."
"Then you don't think, sir, that she will die?" said Bert.
"Die! What put that into your head? No, if only—" he paused, and glanced round the dismal room with rather a hopeless expression—"if only she could have good air and good food, I should say she might do well. What she wants is to be sent into the country as soon as she is a little better."
Bert's face fell. The country seemed to him as far-away as heaven. If Prin's recovery depended on her going there, the chances were sorely against her.