“Be off, man, I tell you!” cried the little doctor, angrily, showing how thoroughly he was autocrat of the sick room. “Go, and send in my wife, and Miss Stuart. Or no: my wife will do.”
The Resident bent down once over the thin, dark face, and then stole softly out of the room, to find Mrs Bolter waiting; and nodding quickly, she went in and closed the door.
“What news?” asked Hilton, eagerly, as he rose from a chair near the window.
“I don’t know—I dare not say,” replied Harley, sinking hopelessly into a chair; and for a time no one spoke.
It was the doctor who broke the silence by coming back from the sick room, and this time sending a thrill of hope into the breast of all as he began to rub his hands in an apparently satisfied manner, and gazed from one to the other.
“Is—is she better, doctor?”
“Don’t know! won’t prognosticate!” he said, sharply. “I’ll say that she’s no worse. Prostrated by mental emotion, but other symptoms at a standstill. If she lives—well, if she lives—”
“Yes, yes, doctor!” cried the Resident, imploringly.
“Well, if she lives, I think it will be from some sudden turn in her mental state, for I have done all I know, and of course a man—even a medical man—can do no more.”