"To be sure. I hope you'll be as successful in all your scientific objects as you were the last time, and have no sorrows awaiting you when you come back."
"Thank you. Yes. I hope so. You don't think there's any danger of infection now, do you?"
"No! If the disease were to spread through the household, I think we should have had some signs of it before now. One is never sure, remember, with scarlet fever."
Roger was silent for a minute or two. "Should you be afraid," he said at length, "of seeing me at your house?"
"Thank you; but I think I would rather decline the pleasure of your society there at present. It's only three weeks or a month since the child began. Besides, I shall be over here again before you go. I'm always on my guard against symptoms of dropsy. I have known it supervene."
"Then I shall not see Molly again!" said Roger, in a tone and with a look of great disappointment.
Mr. Gibson turned his keen, observant eyes upon the young man, and looked at him in as penetrating a manner as if he had been beginning with an unknown illness. Then the doctor and the father compressed his lips and gave vent to a long intelligent whistle. "Whew!" said he.
Roger's bronzed cheeks took a deeper shade.
"You will take a message to her from me, won't you? A message of farewell?" he pleaded.
"Not I. I'm not going to be a message-carrier between any young man and young woman. I'll tell my womenkind I forbade you to come near the house, and that you're sorry to go away without bidding good-by. That's all I shall say."