“I think I can, dear,” he said gently.
“Oh!” she said, and the fret in her voice jarred him strangely, “just look at those grease-spots on your waistcoat. Didn’t Sarah set your table-napkin? The careless, heedless creature! Yet how you can [168] ]let food drop like that I don’t know. It is a pretty example for the children. And you never think of me, always cleaning and sponging your clothes for you.”
The doctor looked with troubled eyes at the drop or two of tea his waistcoat still bore from his hurriedly swallowed lunch. Then he drew out his handkerchief and rubbed the marks anxiously away.
“See, they don’t show, dear,” he said gently.
“Let me see,” she said.
He came closer for inspection, his eyes still looking down ruefully at his coat.
“Robert! Robert!” she cried, and the suddenly changed voice seemed to come from a depth of anguish he had never dreamt it was in her nature to sound. He looked at her, startled, saw her working face and the agony in her eyes, and was down on his knees beside her, holding her, helping her, great tears bursting from his eyes.
“Oh!” she said, when her voice came to her again, after a speechless indrawing of breath, “do you think I don’t know? Do you really think I don’t know? Do you think I didn’t hear poor little Alf and see his big eyes? Do you think I haven’t known for weeks—weeks?”
“Hush!” he said, his tears raining hotter, “hush, Ellie—Ellie, dear one.”
She gave a dreadful little laugh.