“But is she injured? Can she walk?”
“What could you expect? She cannot walk yet, but she is getting better gradually—at least, I think so.”
“What you think is nothing, less than nothing. What do the doctors say?”
As Ogilvie was speaking he drew his wife gradually but surely away from the fashionably dressed people and the big-wigs who were too polite to stare, but who were all the time devoured with curiosity. It began to be whispered in the crowd that Ogilvie had returned, and that his wife and he were looking at certain matters from different points of view. There were several men and women present, who, although they encouraged Mrs. Ogilvie to have the bazaar, nevertheless thought her a heartless woman, and these people now were rather rejoicing in Ogilvie’s attitude. He did not look like a person who could be trifled with. He drew his wife toward the shrubbery.
“I will see the child in a minute,” he said; “nothing else matters. She is ill, unable to walk, lying down. I want to hear full particulars. If you will not tell them to me, I will send for the doctor. The question I wish answered is this, what do the doctors say?”
Tears filled Mrs. Ogilvie’s pretty, dark eyes.
“Really, Phil, you are too cruel. After these weeks of anxiety, which only a mother can understand, you speak to me in that tone, just as if the dear little creature were nothing to me at all.”
“You can cry, Mildred, as much as you please, and you can talk all the sentimental stuff that best appeals to you, but answer my question now. What do the doctors say, and what doctors has she seen?”
“The local doctor here, our own special doctor in town, and the great specialist, Sir Henry Powell.”
“Good God, that man!” said Ogilvie, starting back. “Then she must have been badly hurt?”