“Humph! How stupid of me! I don’t know that there is life, so how can there be hope?”
Doctor Bolter was on his way back home after a professional round amongst his patients. His eyes were fixed upon the ground, and every now and then, as he walked slowly on in the heat, he paused to examine some fly or ant that crossed his path, or settled upon the bamboo railings of a garden.
“Good morning, doctor,” said a pleasant voice, that made him start from the contemplation of a spider to a far more agreeable sight—that of the face of Grey Stuart, who looked up at him in a weary, appealing way.
“Ah, my little rosebud,” he said, smiling. “Tut! I had forgotten. Why Grey, my child, you don’t look well. Hah! this won’t do,” he continued, letting his fingers slip from her hand to her wrist. “Bit feverish, my dear. Grey, my child, you’re fretting about Helen Perowne.”
“It is so terrible, this suspense, doctor,” she said, pleadingly.
“Yes, my dear, it is very terrible; but keep that sunshade up; the sun is very powerful this morning.”
Grey raised her creamy-white sunshade that she had allowed to hang by her side, and as the doctor finished counting the throbs of her pulse, he drew her hand through his arm, patted it into position and then walked slowly on by her side.
“Nature says, my dear, that we must not fret and worry ourselves, because if we do we shall be ill.”
“Oh, yes, doctor,” sighed Grey, with a pitiful look in her soft eyes, “but this passing away of day after day is dreadful. What are we to do?”
“Wait, my dear, wait.”