“Ah, well!” mused the doctor, as he stood at the window holding the blind a little on one side so as to gaze out at the grey sky, “it might have been worse, and it will make him more careful for the future. My word though, it was precious lucky that I was in the boat.”
He yawned slightly now, for there was no denying that the doctor was terribly sleepy. It was bad enough to lose a night’s rest, but the exhaustion he had suffered from his efforts made it worse, and in spite of his anxiety and eagerness to save his friend, there was no concealing the fact that unless he had risen and walked about now and then he would have fallen asleep.
Just as the sky was becoming flecked with tiny clouds of gold and orange, the first brightness that had been seen since the evening before, a few muttered words and a restless movement made doctor and wife hurry to the extempore couch.
“Kate! Where’s Kate?” exclaimed Scarlett in a hoarse cracked voice.
“I am here, dear—here at your side,” she whispered, laying her cheek to his.
“Has the boat gone over? Save Kate!”
“We are all safe, dear husband.”
“Fool!—idiot!—to go so near. So dangerous!” he cried excitedly. “Jack—Jack, old man—my wife—my wife!”
“It’s all right, old fellow,” said the doctor cheerily. “There, there; you only had a bit of a ducking—that’s all.”
“Scales—Jack!—Where am I? Where’s Kate?”