“Humph! That’s a sign you’re better. Why didn’t you call in?”
“I hadn’t the heart, sir. I could see Mrs Morley sitting there with her head resting in her hand, and it set me thinking, sir.”
“Good lad! Yes, of course. But she’d have taken it kindly, my lad, if you had dropped in to see her now that she is in such trouble.”
“But I was afraid she would think I had brought some news, sir, and then she would have been disappointed.”
“No, boy. She and I are both getting hardened to trouble now. We have pretty well given up hoping for anything good. There, come in, my lad.”
He laid his hand on Archie’s shoulder, and they walked into the house together, Mrs Morley startling the visitor as he noted how thin and old-looking she had grown.
“Ah, Archie,” she said, as he saw by the lamp that the tears had started into her eyes, “I am so glad to see you—so much better, too. But—”
She turned quickly away, tearing her handkerchief from her pocket, and the next minute she would have thrown herself sobbing in a chair but for the entrance of one of the native maids, who in her broken English announced that there were two people wanting to see the Doctor.
“Not the proper time for them to come,” said that gentleman. “Who are they? People who have been here before?”
“Yes, sahib,” said the girl. “It is Dula, with her husband.”