"Yes, you must go." He put his arms around her, and her face fell against his shoulder. "Go, dear Doris, and dream of sweet and lovely things—your father strong and well and tenderer than ever—and dream of me, not very good, I know, but—very fond of you. And please forget the bishop."
Doris laughed at that, quickly, breathlessly. "I will, just for to-night," she promised.
"No, for all the nights."
He kissed her hair where it curled beneath the blue motor hat, warmly, tenderly—for somehow he felt that this night of her anxious sorrow was not the time to press the kiss of love upon her lips, though he knew in his heart it would not have been denied him.
CHAPTER XIV THE DOCTOR
It seemed very terrible to the two girls to stay there quietly waiting in their father's painfully bright room at the hospital until he was brought back to them on the wheeled table from the operating-room. They could not speak. Doris sat with her hands clenched tightly in her lap, with Rosalie on the arm of the chair, leaning against her. MacCammon stood beside the window, coming to the girls now and then to give them reassuring pats and smiles, and then going back to the window. Presently a nurse came in, carefully darkened the room, and put water bottles and flannels in the bed. She smiled encouragingly at the girls, who tried very hard to twist their lips into a semblance of good cheer in return.
Then the table was wheeled in again, and father was slipped deftly back into the bed, and the doctor was talking to them brightly, and smiling.
"Just fine. Worked like a charm. Why, when I think of how that man must have suffered for the last months— Why, it is preposterous— It is downright— Anyhow, it is over now."