Mr. Pawlkatt sat looking at his patient longer than usual that morning. George Gilbert lay in a kind of stupor, and did not recognize his medical attendant, and sometime rival. He had long since ceased to be anxious about his poor patients in the lanes behind the church, or about anything else upon this earth, as it seemed; and now that her great terror had been lifted from her mind, Isabel saw a new and formless horror gliding swiftly towards her, like a great iceberg sailing fast upon an arctic sea. She followed Mr. Pawlkatt out of the room, and down the little staircase, and clung to his arm as he was about to leave her.
"Oh, do you think he will die?" she said. "I did not know until this morning that he was so very ill. Do you think he will die?"
The surgeon looked inquisitively into the earnest face lifted to his—looked with some expression of surprise upon his countenance.
"I am very anxious, Mrs. Gilbert," he answered, gravely. "I will not conceal from you that I am growing very anxious. The pulse is feeble and intermittent; and these low fevers—there, there, don't cry. I'll drive over to Wareham, as soon as I've seen the most important of my cases; and I'll ask Dr. Herstett to come and look at your husband. Pray try to be calm."
"I am so frightened," murmured Isabel, between her low half-stifled sobs. "I never saw any one ill—like that—before."
Mr. Pawlkatt watched her gravely as he drew on his gloves.
"I am not sorry to see this anxiety on your part, Mrs. Gilbert," he remarked sententiously. "As the friend and brother-professional of your husband, and as a man who is—ahem!—old enough to be your father, I will go so far as to say that I am gratified to find that you—I may say, your heart is in the right place. There have been some very awkward reports about you, Mrs. Gilbert, during the last few days. I—I—of course should not presume to allude to those reports, if I did not believe them to be erroneous," the surgeon added, rather hastily, not feeling exactly secure as to the extent and bearing of the law of libel.
But Isabel only looked at him with bewilderment and distress in her face.
"Reports about me!" she repeated. "What reports?"
"There has been a person—a stranger—staying at a little inn down in Nessborough Hollow; and you,—in fact, I really have no right to interfere in this matter, but my very great respect for your husband,-and, in short——"