"Why not?"
"Because of the blood. After the doctor came, she said you wasn't to see her till I'd put clean sheets on the bed. It's a hemorrhage, sir."
"I know. Let me go in." Again Ronnie tried to push past the woman. Again she restrained him. Her black eyes seemed strangely hostile, resolute.
"It's a hemorrhage," she repeated fiercely, "and it's her own fault. Time and again I've told her she ought to heed what Sir Heron said. But she wouldn't. She wouldn't give in." Then, accusingly, "Because she didn't want you and Mrs. Ronnie to know."
"Know what?"
"That she had the consumption."
"Consumption!" The word struck Ronnie like the lash of a whip. He saw accusation--an accusation of selfishness--in the woman's hostile eyes. Those eyes knew his whole story. He wanted to say to them: "We hadn't an idea. Honestly, we hadn't the slightest idea." Sir Heron Baynet's reported diagnosis recurred to his mind. "She isn't ill, but she has a tendency to illness." Either the specialist had made a mistake, or else---- He realized, with a heart-rending clarity, that Julia must have purposely concealed her danger, because--because of his own troubles.
The bedroom door opened noiselessly, and a clean-shaven intellectual face inspected him through gold-rimmed glasses.
"Are you the patient's son?" asked Dr. Redbank; and then, seeing the dish-cloth in Ronnie's hand, "Is that the ice?"
"Yes. Can I come in?"