"Well, that's fine. Got you interested in something, then? Would you like a peg?"
"No. I hated the stuff. There was a pleasant numbness in the bottle; that's why I went to it."
"Thought so. But I had to know for sure. Down there, whisky raises the very devil with white men. Don't build your hopes too high; but I will do what I can. While there's life there's hope. Buck up."
"I'm afraid I don't understand."
"Understand what?"
"You or this girl. There are, then, in this sorry world, people who can be disinterestedly kind!"
The doctor laughed, gave Spurlock's shoulder a pat, and left the room. Outside the door he turned and stared at the panels. Why hadn't he gone on with the girl's story? What instinct had stuffed it back into his throat? Why the inexplicable impulse to hurry this rather pathetic derelict on his way?
CHAPTER XV
Previous to his illness, Spurlock's mind had been tortured by an appalling worry, so that now, in the process of convalescence, it might be compared to a pool which had been violently stirred: there were indications of subsidence, but there were still strange forms swirling on the surface—whims and fancies which in normal times would never have risen above sub-consciousness.
Little by little the pool cleared, the whims vanished: so that both Ruth and the doctor, by the middle of the third week, began to accept Spurlock's actions as normal, whereas there was still a mote or two which declined to settle, still a kink in the gray matter that refused to straighten out.