‘Gott in Himmel!’ shouted Herr Scales, springing to his feet as he recognised the Doctor’s voice. ‘Tell me, Herr Doktor, haf I kilt her? Am I a murterer of the lieblichste little Fräulein that ever walked upon––’
‘Nonsense, sir!’ interrupted Dr. Hurst, doing his best to keep his temper. The sight of the tears that streamed down the good-natured face of the music-master was enough, he told himself, to annoy any man who was not a foreigner. ‘Nobody has killed her yet; but what you are going to do, among you, before you have done with her, I shouldn’t like to say.’
‘You do not understand,’ wept Herr Scales, clasping his hands. ‘It was I who nearly kilt her, dummer wretch that I am.’
‘Well, you haven’t killed her, my good sir, and she’s going to get better,’ answered the Doctor, trying to deal gently with him in spite of his irritating foreign behaviour. Then he left him and went quickly down the stairs.
Two more voices assailed him in the hall, as he took down his coat from the peg. Restraining his impatience as best he might, the young man looked round to find Kit and Wilfred at his elbow. Curled up on the rug in front of the stove lay Robin, fast asleep, with his head pillowed on a footstool. Weariness and the shedding of many tears had left their mark on his round, babyish face, and the elder boys looked little more than half-awake themselves. Kit’s face was tear-stained too, and he suddenly found he could not put the question he was longing to ask. It was Wilfred who blurted it out instead.
‘Is she better?’ he asked.
The Doctor had been up all night; he had gone through more anxiety than he could have believed himself capable of feeling; he had found that his heart had gone out unconsciously, eleven weeks ago, to the child who had called him a beast; and he felt that all the glory his profession could bring him was not worth so much as the saving of that one little life upstairs. And then people came and bothered him with their senseless questions. If she were worse, was it likely he would be leaving her now?
He was worn out with want of sleep, and it did not occur to him that the same thing might possibly be true of the white-faced lads before him.
‘Bless my soul!’ he exclaimed testily. ‘How many are there of you? There’s a couple at every corner. How can you expect your sister to get better if you hang about the place and ask questions at the top of your voice? There’s–there’s an atmosphere of nervous sentiment all over the house that’s enough to ruin any case.’
Wilfred was dumbfounded, and stared stupidly. But Christopher suddenly found his tongue, and, being Christopher, he found it sarcastically.