“Here, drink this!”
And Richard drank it—and looked at him stupidly. Something was happening inside his brain—things were growing more settled and luminous. A smile wreathed his face.
“It’s a girl, is it?” he cried jubilantly.
The doctor nodded.
Richard More clapped him on the shoulder.
“Good work!” he said.
The doctor removed the shoulder gently. He turned toward Eleanor’s room.
“You can stay outside,” he said as he disappeared. “We shall not need you for a while.”
And Richard sat down in his parlor on the small sofa and took his tousled head in his hands and held it fast. He may have dozed a little.
When he got up and straggled to the kitchen, he found a strange woman making a fire in the range.