"So had I," he answered, as he rose to meet his visitor.
Dr. Steele, a gray-haired, vigorous man, entered the gate and came hurriedly up the path, something fateful in his stride. He greeted them both casually, smilelessly. "I've got to get that next train," he announced, mechanically looking at his watch, "and that leaves me just twenty minutes in which to thump you."
Bertha was in awe of this blunt, tactless man of science, and as they moved towards the house listened in chilled silence while he continued: "Brent writes me that you were doing pretty well down by the lake. Why didn't you stay? He says he advised you not to come back."
"This is me home," answered Haney, simply.
Lucius took Bertha's place at Mart's shoulder and the three men went into the library, leaving her to wait outside in anxious solitude. There was something in the doctor's manner which awed her, filled her with new conceptions, new duties.
Steele was one of these cold-blooded practitioners who do not believe in the old-fashioned manner. "Cheery suggestion" was nonsense to him. His examination was to Bertha, as to Haney, a dreaded ordeal. However, Brent had advised it, and they had agreed to submit to it, and now here he was, and upon his judgment she must rest.
For half an hour she waited in the hall, almost without moving, so far-reaching did this verdict promise to be. Her anxiety deepened into fear as Steele came out of the room and walked rapidly towards her. "He's a very sick man," he burst forth, irritably. "Get him away from here as quickly as you can—but don't excite him. Don't let him exert himself at all till you reach a lower altitude. Keep him quiet and peaceful, and don't let him clog himself up with starchy food—and above all, keep liquors away from him. He shouldn't have come back here at all. Brent warned him that he couldn't live up here. Slide him down to sea-level—if he'll go—and take care of him. His heart will run along all right if he don't overtax it. He'll last for years at sea-level."
"He hates to leave—he says he won't leave," she explained.
The man of science shrugged his shoulders. "All right! He can take his choice of roads"—he used an expressive gesture—"up or down. One leads to the New Jerusalem and is short—as he'll find out if he stays here. Good-night! I must get that train."
"Wait a minute!" she called after him. "Is there anything I can do? Did you leave any medicine?"