“Well—for your own satisfaction. But on that point we’ve been lucky. An English doctor turned up at Molde, and came along with us. He keeps an eye on the Norwegian fellow, and is satisfied.”
As to nurses, too, they had been fortunate. Not only had one been found who spoke English, but an English nurse, going home in attendance on a lady, had been captured, and installed.
By the time all this was told, they had reached the door of the hotel. Colonel Martyn looked into a room.
“Blanche and Anne are out,” he said. “What will you do? Go up?”
“At once, if I can.”
But Wareham had to curb his impatience for half-an-hour. Colonel Martyn left him, and at the end of that time a nurse, who astonished him by her youth, came to tell him that he might see Mr Forbes.
“You will be careful not to excite him, sir,” she said warningly.
“Does he expect me?”
“Yes. He was certain you would come.” He asked no more questions. To see and judge for himself was his thought. The dark room gave him his first pang, it was so unlike Hugh’s love of light and life. Then he began to distinguish eyes gazing at him from hollow depths, and his heart sank. A weak voice—not Hugh’s surely—said,—
“Here you are, old fellow!”