“And might not this”—
“Richling, I give you fair warning.”
“Have you sent your cousins away, Doctor?”
“They go to-morrow.” After a silence the Doctor added: “I tell you now, because this is the time to decide what you will do. If you are not prepared to take all the risks and stay them through, you had better go at once.”
“What proportion of those who are taken sick of it die?” asked Richling.
“The proportion varies in different seasons; say about one in seven or eight. But your chances would be hardly so good, for you’re not strong, Richling, nor well either.”
Richling stood and swung his hat against his knee.
“I really don’t see, Doctor, that I have any choice at all. I couldn’t go to Mary—when she has but just come through a mother’s pains and dangers—and say, ‘I’ve thrown away seven good chances of life to run away from one bad one.’ Why, to say nothing else, Reisen can’t spare me.” He smiled with boyish vanity.
“O Richling, that’s silly!”
“I—I know it,” exclaimed the other, quickly; “I see it is. If he could spare me, of course he wouldn’t be paying me a salary.” But the Doctor silenced him by a gesture.