"How can I thank you? And you have been sitting here so long in the dark without anyone to look after you. You must think me inhospitable to the last degree. Come inside now."
They went into the room, and Ellison set refreshment before the doctor. He would, however, not touch a drop himself.
"I dare not," he said, in reply to the other's look of astonishment. "In the state I'm in I should be dead drunk if I drank a thimbleful. I can tell you I wouldn't live this night again for something."
"I wouldn't be answerable for your brain if you did," the doctor replied, glancing at the haggard face before him. "What on earth have you been doing with yourself! You look as if you'd been communing with the Legions of the Dead."
"So I have—so I have. You've just hit it. That's what I have been doing. I've seen the dead of all the world troop past me to-night."
"Give me your wrist."
He spoke in a tone of command, and almost unconsciously Ellison extended one arm. The doctor placed his finger on the pulse.
"Nothing much the matter there. You only want a good night's sleep now the anxiety's over, and I prophesy you'll be as fit as a fiddle to-morrow. I shouldn't be at all surprised if you tell me you're the proudest father in the hemisphere. Bless you, I know your sort!"
Ellison laughed softly, but for all that it was a mirthless laugh. He had not recovered yet from the shock of all he had undergone that evening.
"When may I see her?"