“Oh, pray, come up, sir, and don’t talk,” cried Dick excitedly. “Poor father is dying!”
“Oh, no,” said the doctor; “we must not let him die.”
“But be quick, sir! You are so long!” cried Dick.
“Don’t be impatient, my lad,” said the doctor smiling. “We folks have to be calm and quiet in all we do. Now show me the way.”
Dick led him to the room, the doctor beckoning Hickathrift to follow; and as soon as he reached the injured man’s side he quietly sent Mrs Winthorpe and Dick to wait in the next room, retaining the great wheelwright to help him move his patient.
The time seemed interminable, and as mother and son sat waiting, every word spoken in the next room sounded like a moan from the injured man. Mrs Winthorpe’s face appeared to be that of a woman ten years older, and her agony was supreme; but like a true wife and tender mother—ah, how little we think of what a mother’s patience and self-denial are when we are young!—she devoted her whole energies to administering comfort to her sorely-tried son.
A dozen times over Dick felt that he could not keep the secret that troubled him—that he must tell his mother his suspicions and ask her advice; but so sure as he made up his mind to speak, the fear that he might be wrong troubled him, and he forebore.
Then began the whole struggle again, and at last he was nearer than ever to confiding his horrible belief in their neighbour’s treachery, when the doctor suddenly appeared.
Dick rose from where he had been kneeling by his mother’s side, and she started from her seat to grasp the doctor’s hand.
She did not speak, but her eyes asked the one great question of her heart, and then, as the doctor’s hard sour face softened and he smiled, Mrs Winthorpe uttered a piteous sigh and clasped her hands together in thankfulness to Heaven.