Two minutes later the doctor had Lanse stretched on a narrow white table in an inner office. "I've got to hurt you quite a bit," he said to his patient. "I don't want to give you an anesthetic, but somebody must hold your head. Shall I call Mrs. Fields?"
He glanced at Charlotte, and met what he had counted on--her help. "No, I can manage," she said quietly.
The doctor was soon ready, with arms, surgically clean, bared to the elbows.
It was rather a bad ten minutes for Lanse that followed, although he bore it bravely, without a sound. The strong, steady support of his sister's hands on the sides of his head never varied, and her eyes watched the doctor's rapid movements with absorbed attention. Doctor Churchill glanced at her two or three times, but met only quiet resolve in her face, which, although pale, showed no sign of weakness.
The injury was a severe one, being no clean cut, but a jagged gash several inches in length, caused by a heavy blow with a rough tool. Charlotte observed that the worker seemed never at a loss what to do, that his touch was as light as it was practised, and that his eyes were full of keen interest in his work. At length Doctor Churchill finished his manipulations and put on the smooth bandages, which, he remarked with a laugh, were to turn Lanse into the image of the Terrible Turk.
"You show all the Spartan attributes of the real martyr," declared the doctor, as he helped his patient back to a couch. "It took pluck to get home here alone. How was it they sent no man with you?"
"Everybody busy. A man was coming with me if I'd let him, but I didn't care for his company so I slipped out. It was farther home than I thought," Lanse explained. "How long will this lay me up? I can go back to-morrow, can't I?"
"Suppose we say the day after. That hammock on your front porch behind the vines strikes me as a restful place for you. A bit of vacation won't hurt you."
By afternoon the ache in John Lansing's head had reached a point where he gladly lay quietly in the hammock and submitted to be waited on by two devoted feminine slaves. The doctor came over to see him after supper, and found him in a high state of restlessness. He got him to bed, stayed with him until he fell into an uneasy slumber, then left him in charge of Celia, and came so quietly down to the front porch again that he startled Charlotte, who lay in the hammock Lanse had lately quitted.
"Do you need me?" she asked eagerly. "I thought Lanse would rather have Celia with him, and I was sure she wanted to take care of him, so I stayed. But I'm ready, if I'm wanted."