“Did he tell the mother anything about her condition?”
“He did not. He said, it is true, that there was a defect of the heart; but he added that with children such things often disappear without a trace. He has no hope himself.”
Pan Stanislav did not yield to misfortune easily.
“What is one doctor!” said he. “We must struggle to save the child while there is a spark of hope. The doctor may be mistaken. We must take her to a specialist at Monachium, or bring him here. That will alarm Pani Emilia, but it is difficult to avoid it. Wait; we can avoid it. I will bring him, and that immediately. We will tell Pani Emilia that such and such a celebrated doctor has come here to see some one, and that there is a chance of taking counsel concerning Litka. We must not leave the child without aid. We need merely to write to him, so that he may know how to talk to the mother.”
“But to whom will you write?”
“To whom? Do I know? The local doctor here will indicate a specialist. Let us go to him at once, and lose no time.”
The matter was arranged that very day. In the evening the two men went to Pani Emilia. Litka was well, but silent and gloomy. She smiled, it is true, at her mother and her friend; she showed gratitude for the tenderness with which they surrounded her; but Pan Stanislav had not power to amuse her. Having his head filled with thoughts of the danger which threatened the child, he considered her gloom a sign of increasing sickness and an early premonition of near death, and with terror he said in his soul that she was not such as she had been; it seemed as if certain threads binding her to life had been broken. His fear increased still more when Pani Emilia said,—
“Litka feels well, but do you know what she begged of me to-day? To go back to Warsaw.”
Pan Stanislav with an effort of will put down his alarm, and, turning to the little one, said while feigning joyfulness,—
“Ah, thou good-for-nothing! Art thou not sorry for Thumsee?”