“Relapse?” said the doctor in a low voice and laughing quietly. “Well, the only form of relapse he could have would be to tumble in again.”
“Don’t; pray, don’t laugh at me, doctor,” said Lady Scarlett piteously. “You cannot tell what I suffer.”
“O yes, I can,” he said kindly. “If I laughed then, it was only to give you confidence. He will wake up with a bad nervous headache, and that’s all.—Now, suppose you go and lie down.”
“No; I shall stay with my husband,” she said firmly. “I cannot go.”
“Well,” he said, “you shall stay.—Perhaps you will stay with us as well, Miss Raleigh,” he added. “We can shade the light; and he is so utterly exhausted, that even if we talk, I don’t think he will wake.”
“And he will not be worse?” whispered Lady Scarlett.
“People will not have any confidence in their medical man. Come, now, I think you might trust me, after what I have done.”
“I do trust you, Doctor Scales, and believe in you as my husband’s best and dearest friend,” cried Lady Scarlett. “Heaven bless you for what you have done!” She hurriedly kissed his hand; and then, after a glance at her husband’s pale face, she went and sat upon the floor beside Aunt Sophia’s chair, laid her hands upon the elder lady’s knees, and hid her face, sitting there so motionless that she seemed to be asleep.
“I wish she would not do that,” muttered the doctor; and then: “I hate a woman who behaves in that lapdog way. I never liked her, and I don’t think I ever shall.”
It was a change indeed, the long watch through that night, and it was with a sigh of relief that the doctor saw the first grey light of morning stealing through the window. Only a few hours before and all had been so bright and sunny, now all was depression and gloom. When they started for their water trip trouble seemed a something that could not fall upon so happy a home. Aunt Sophia’s fears had only been a motive for mirth, and since then, with a rapidity that was like the lightning’s flash, this terrible shock had come upon them.