He found the nursemaid up and waiting for him. Phoebe had a “dreadful throat” and a high temperature. It had come on very suddenly, it seems, and if Annie’s memory served her right it was just the way diphtheria began. The little girl had been thrashing about in the bed and whimpering for “daddy” since eight o’clock. His heart sank like lead, to a far deeper level than it had dropped with the base desertion of Butler. Filled with remorse, he ran upstairs without taking off his hat or overcoat. The feeling of resentment toward Butler was lost in this new, overpowering sense of dread; the discovery of his own lamentable unfitness for “high life” expeditions faded into nothingness in the face of this possible catastrophe. What if Phoebe were to die? He would be to blame. He remembered feeling that he should not have left her that evening. It had been a premonition, and this was to be the price of his folly. 72
At three in the morning he went over to rouse the doctor, all the time thinking that, even if he were capable of forgiving himself for Phoebe’s death, Nellie would always hold him responsible. The doctor refused to come before eight o’clock, and slammed the door in the disturber’s face.
“If she dies,” he said to himself over and over again as he trudged homeward, “I’ll kill that beast of a doctor. I’ll tear his heart out.”
The doctor did not come till nine-thirty. They never do. He at once said it was a bad attack of tonsilitis, and began treatment on the stomach. He took a culture and said he would let Mr.—Mr. What’s-His-Name know whether there was anything diphtheritic. In the meantime, “Take good care of her.”
Saturday morning a loving note came from Nellie, deploring the fact that she couldn’t come out on Sunday after all. The doctor said she must save her strength. She instructed Harvey to dismiss Bridget and get another cook at once. But Harvey’s heart had melted toward Bridget. The big Irishwoman was the soul of kindness now that her employer was in distress. 73
About nine o’clock that morning a man came up and tacked a placard on the door and informed the household that it was in quarantine. Harvey went out and looked at the card. Then he slunk back into Phoebe’s room and sat down, very white and scared.
“Do you think she’ll die?” he asked of the doctor when that gentleman called soon afterward. He was shivering like a leaf.
“Not necessarily,” said the man of medicine, calmly. “Diphtheria isn’t what it used to be.”
“If she dies I’ll jump in the river,” said the little father, bleakly.
“Nonsense!” said the doctor. “Can you swim?” he added, whimsically.