The doctor went back to the bedside. He motioned Susan and bent to his work again.
By and by the inert figure stirred; there was a faint flush of color in the white face; the doctor put a spoon to his lips, again and again. The young man opened his eyes, looked at him without a glimpse of recognition, turned a little on his side, and fell asleep.
"He's dry—quite?" the doctor whispered to Susan.
"I stripped off ebery rag he had. He's got on Bill's shut now."
A smile twitched the doctor's mouth, but he went on gravely enough. "Is the brick hot?"
"'Tis de third one I done put in dyar!"
"Keep the fire going all you can!" to Bill. Bill before the fire piled log after log with utmost quiet. The doctor pushed a flag chair noiselessly towards Frances; Susan, used to long waiting, drooped by the footboard; the doctor walked to and fro with noiseless footsteps from bed to window. Out there, the narrow valley was flooded with sunshine, the stream running full and red with the clay of the fields it had ravaged; in here lay the victim of the flood. He took out his watch, slipped it back again, looked long out of the little window towards the distant purple peaks, went back to the bedside, looked, leaned over,—turned, his face beaming.
"Perspiration!" he whispered, as he touched the edges of the young man's forehead.
"You mean—" gasped Frances.