It seems a little hard.
"But supposing it had been life-long crippledom!" I must learn to be patient.
*****
I think I might have helped Dr. Renton, made it less difficult for him to tell. But I was selfish. Instinctively I knew what was coming—his rugged face was more rugged than usual—and yet I clasped my hands and cried, "How long you have been. When may I get up? Oh, say to-day. I do so want to go to the door to meet Dimbie. I ache to go and meet him. I hear the latch of the garden gate, his footstep on the gravel; then my spirit like a bird flies to meet his, and—Amelia meets him. Speak, Dr. Renton. Say it quickly. Say I may get up."
And all the answer he made was to pick up one of the volumes of the encyclopædia and walk to the window.
There was silence for a moment, and that silence told me all.
"But my pulse is steady, doctor, dear," I cried with a sob in my voice. "My temperature is normal. My eyes are clear. My colour is good. I am quite well again."
"I wish to God you were!" he said almost savagely.
"What is the matter with me?" I spoke more quietly. His evident emotion frightened me into a momentary calmness. I might as well know the worst or best and get it over. My heart beat thickly, and I closed my eyes. I had known Dr. Renton long enough to feel sure that whatever he told me would be the truth. And the truth was that I was to be on my back for a whole year; to be lifted from my bed to a couch, and from the couch back again to bed; that I might be wheeled from one room to another on the ground floor, but must never walk.
Never walk! As one in a dream I heard his words. Dully and with unseeing eyes I stared through the window. By and by I should get used to the idea, used to being still. What would Dimbie say?