He was gone again.
Beside the narrow bed on which he lay every night, there dropped upon its knees a figure in sumptuous furs; a face such as men vow themselves ready to die for was pressed into the hard little pillow. Helena Forrest breathed a prayer of beseeching for a life she had never seen, and when she had done lifted eyes wet with tears.
As Hugh Breckenridge, protesting at the lateness of the hour, marshalled his friends into the great car at the door, Doctor Brainard came out of Mrs. Kelcey's house and ran across to the curb.
"Don wants me to tell you that the baby's pulled through. It's gone off to sleep with his finger in its fist, and he won't leave it. He says 'good-night' to you."
"Was it the prayer or the potion that saved it, Doctor?" questioned
Breckenridge in his caustic tone.
"I don't know," said the doctor—and there was something new and gentle in his voice. "It was very nearly beyond potions—I'm inclined to think it was the prayer." An hour afterward, Doctor Brainard, sitting wide-awake and thoughtful before Brown's fire, was aware of the quiet entrance of the younger man. He looked up, and a radiant smile met him.
"Still doing well, I see, Don."
Brown nodded. He sank down into the chair opposite the doctor and ran his hand through his hair. In spite of the brightness of his face the gesture betrayed weariness.
Doctor Brainard got up. He went over to the corner where his overcoat hung upon a peg in the wall, and took from a pocket a small instrument composed mostly of tubes. He inserted certain earpieces in his ears and returned to the fire.
"Sit up and let me get at you," he commanded.