“O Miss Syl, I do believe you have saved my mother’s life! She will get better—she must—now that I can stay here all the time and take care of her.”
Syl was glad to get out into the street. She felt something in her own throat choking her. Just a few steps off she met Dr. Meade,—her own doctor, as it chanced,—and it struck her that it would be a good thing if he would go in to see Mrs. Gordon. So she asked him.
“I’m going there,” he said. “I try to see her once every week.”
“And will she live—can she?”
The doctor answered, with half a sigh,—
“I’m afraid not. She needs more constant care, and more nourishing food and other things. I wish I could help her more, but I can only give my services, and I see so many such cases.”
“But she would take things from you, and not be hurt?”
“I should make her if I had a full purse to go to.”
“Well, then, here are forty dollars for her; and you are to get her what she needs, and never let her know where it came from—will you?”