“Yes, Mrs. Beckett,” he said; “there is danger; but I haven’t given up hope yet.”
“What is it, sir?” I said. “I mean, what is the young lady suffering from?”
He looked at me a minute, and then he said in a quiet way, “A broken heart. That’s not the professional term, but that’s the plain English for it.”
And then he put his hat on, and went out before I could ask him any more.
What he’d told me made me more interested in the young lady than ever, and I felt as sorry for her as though she had been my own sister.
The next day, when the doctor had been, I caught him before he got to the front door, and asked him to come into our parlour. And then I tackled him straight.
“Did he think the young lady was going to die in our house?”
“Do you want her moved?” he said, in his quiet way, looking at me over his spectacles.
“No, sir; I don’t want anything unfeeling, I hope; but I should like to know.”
“My dear lady,” he said, “I can’t tell you what I don’t know myself. Doctors are no good in these cases. I won’t say that the young lady will not get strength enough to be taken to her home; but I see no signs of any improvement at present.”