Then, seeing that there was no likelihood of a story or even talk from the Doctor, she proposed, softly to Leonora, that they go upstairs.
"No, stay here with David, if you wish; you're not in the way. I'm going back with Miss Batterson."
So they remained, while the physician put some medicines in his case, and gave David directions regarding a problem caller.
Soon the nurse came in, suit case in hand, and the two went off together.
"I hope mother won't hear of it right away," the lad mused. "She thinks so much of Uncle David. She'd want to go and do something for him, you know, and she could n't, and so she'd worry."
Polly recalled her recent drive through Forest Park, and could scarcely realize that the big, strong man who had made the time so pleasant for her was now weak and miserable from disease.
David related incidents of his mother's life with her uncle when she was a small girl, one leading to another, until, suddenly, Dr. Dudley opened the door.
"What!" he exclaimed. "My girlies not abed yet! Why, it is nearly nine o'clock! Miss Lucy will think I have kidnapped you."
They hurried away, with laughing good-nights, after being assured by the Doctor that probably Colonel Gresham would "come out all right."
David slept downstairs now, in a tiny room adjoining the physician's, and his last thought that night was of the strangeness of it all—Uncle David's hurrying to catch Dr. Dudley for him, and his being the first to notify the Doctor of his uncle's illness, while they had not even a bowing acquaintance with each other!