"When do we go?" was all the cold lips said. Never a doubt; never a pause.
"What did I tell you?" Law turned to Jo. "Conventions be damned!
"To-day we start, Donelle. And, Mam'selle, just you 'tend to that fire!"
When Norval had been landed in New York he was taken to a hospital—to die. But he did not die, though he tried hard enough, and gave no end of trouble to his doctors and nurses.
"Whom shall we send for?" he was asked when, helpless and blinded, he lay in the small, quiet, white room.
"Am I going west?" The phrase clung like an idiom of a foreign language.
"Good Lord, man, no! You're getting on rippingly." The young house doctor was tireless in his service to this stricken man.
"Then send for no one. I'm not eager to have a chance acquaintance gaping at my useless legs and sightless eyes."
"But you're going to come around all right. It's the effect of shock, you know. How about your relatives?"
"Haven't got any, thank the Lord." Norval's chin stiffened. The young doctor gripped the clasped hands on the counterpane.