“Ye-es, yes, I guess it can. They say joy doesn't kill, and that's one of the few medical proverbs made by unmedical men that are true. You come with me and sit down in that chair. Yes, you will. Sit down.”
He led his patient back to the chair by the window and forced him into it.
“There!” he said. “Now, Mr. Ellery, if you think you are a man, a sensible man, who won't go to pieces like a ten-year-old youngster, I'll—I'll let you sit here for a while.”
“Doctor?”
“You sit still. No, I'm not going to tell you anything. You sit where you are and maybe the news'll come to you. If you move it won't. Going to obey orders? Good! I'll see you by and by, Mr. Ellery.”
He walked out of the room. It seemed to Ellery that he sat in that chair for ten thousand years before the door again opened. And then—
—“Grace!” he cried. “O Grace! you—you've come back.”
She was blushing red, her face was radiant with quiet happiness, but her eyes were moist. She crossed the room, bent over and kissed him on the forehead.
“Yes, John,” she said; “I've come back. Yes, dear, I've come back to—to you.”
Outside the shanty, on the side farthest from the light and its group of buildings, the doctor and Captain Nat Hammond were talking with Mrs. Higgins. The latter was wildly excited and bubbling with joy.