"I should like to go and see him," remarked Brown.
"That will never do," said his wife, promptly; "it will make matters worse all round. And besides, I heard while I was out that the foreman was coming to see if you would be well enough to go to work as usual to-morrow morning."
"To be sure I shall. Thanks to the doctor's care and your good nursing, I shall be right as a trivet by the morning, and a deal better at my work than stopping here to wonder over this and that, and wish I could alter things."
"Well, if the foreman thinks you had better go, I will not hinder it," said Mrs. Brown, thinking of Fanny, and how her father would worry if he only heard the news Jack had brought.
Just before bedtime the foreman came in, for he had heard all sorts of reports about Brown's illness, and wanted to satisfy himself as to what had happened.
"I wasn't there to see!" answered Mrs. Brown, when the man asked if she had not gone out with her husband. "I had gone into a shop, and when I came out there was a crowd, and Brown lying in the middle of it."
"Well, you know what Collins said—that he had killed you."
"Oh, Collins was mad with drink on Saturday!" said Brown, quickly. "No one believes a man when he is like that."
"And you don't want it to be believed, you mean," said the foreman.
Brown laughed. "Who is likely to believe that I am killed when they hear I have gone to work as usual on Monday morning. Besides, what good would it do to have the police meddling between friends?"