‘Then in my opinion the chances are against her recovery.’
Jack Chicot drew a long breath, a strange shivering sigh, which the surgeon, clever as he was, knew not how to interpret.
‘Poor thing!’ said the husband, after a brief silence, looking down at the dull, blank face. ‘And three years ago she and I came out of the Mairie very happy, and loving each other dearly! C’est dommage que cela passe si vite.’
These last words were spoken too low for Gerard to hear. They were a brief lament over a love that was dead.
‘Tell me about the accident,’ said Jack Chicot, sitting down in the chair Gerard had vacated. ‘You were in the theatre, you say. You saw it all.’
‘I did, and it was I who picked your wife up. I was behind the scenes soon enough for that. The panic-stricken wretches about were afraid to touch her.’
Gerard told everything faithfully. Jack Chicot listened with an unchanging face. He knew the worst that could be told him. The details could make little difference.
‘I said just now that in my opinion the chances were against your wife’s recovery,’ said Gerard, full of earnestness, ‘but I did not say the case was hopeless. If I thought it were, I should not be so anxious to undertake the care of your wife. I ask you to let me watch her because I entertain the hope—a faint hope at present, I grant—of curing her.’
Jack Chicot gave a little start, and looked curiously at the speaker.
‘You must be tremendously in love with your profession, to be so anxious about another man’s wife?’ he said.