Halt and Gazell were now consulting in an undertone, touching the selection of a certain remedy; no one noticed them, and they droned on.
The mother crooned over the child, and caressed him, and breathed upon his sunken little face, and poured her soul out over him in precious floods and wastes of tenderness as mothers do.
"Live, my little son!" she whispered. "Live, live!"
But I, meanwhile, was watching the two physicians miserably. "There!" I said, "they have dropped the phial on the floor. See, that is the one they ought to have. It rolled away. They don't mean to take it. They will give him the wrong thing. Oh, how can they?"
But now the mother, when she heard me speak, swiftly and gently removed her arms from beneath the boy, and, advancing to the hesitating men, stood silently between them, and laid a hand upon the arm of each. While she stood there she had a rapt, high look of such sort that I could in no wise have addressed her.
"Are you sure, Dr. Gazell?" asked Halt.
"I think so," said Gazell.
He stooped, after a moment's hesitation, and picked up the phial from the floor, read its label; laid it down, looked at the child, and hesitated again.
The mother at this juncture sunk upon her knees and bowed her shining face. I thought she seemed to be at prayer. I too bowed my head; but it was for reverence at the sight of her. It was long since I had prayed. I did not find it natural to do so. A strange discontent, something almost like an inclination to prayer, came upon me. But that was all. I would rather have had the power to turn those two men out of the room, and pour the saving remedy upon my little patient's burning tongue with my own flesh-and-blood fingers, and a hearty objurgation on the professional blunder which I had come in time to rectify.
"Dr. Halt," said Dr. Gazell, slowly, "with your approval I think I will change my mind. On the whole, the indications point to—this. I trust it is the appropriate remedy."