"Oh, your heart doesn't give me any concern—if you don't take liberties with it. Perhaps it isn't quite as good as it was thirty years ago, but—"
"Ah, I lost it to you then, Willy. You were a sweet little fellow when you came into my class. Do you remember once when—"
"Miss Harriet, you've got to go to Mercer with me to-morrow," William King interrupted, quietly. "I hope there's nothing much out of the way. I hope not. I—I believe not. But I'm not sure. We'll go up and see Greylord and find out. He'll give you some pills, maybe," he ended, and laughed and got up. "Now I'm off to the cat, Miss Harriet."
And Miss Harriet, to her astonishment, found herself dismissed before she had made the boy tell her what he was afraid of. "He is a boy," she said to herself. "Of course he wouldn't be apt to know what was the matter. I ought to have gone to see some Mercer man to begin with. I remember when Willy was born."
III
When they came out of the Mercer doctor's door William King's fresh face had gone white, but Miss Harriet walked smiling. At the foot of the steps the doctor paused and stood an instant leaning on the hand-rail, as though for support and to get his breath. Miss Harriet looked at him with concern. "Why, Willy!" she said.
"Miss Harriet," William said, hoarsely, "he may be mistaken. It's perfectly possible that he is mistaken."
"I guess not, Willy," she said, simply. "Come, now, don't be such a wet string." She struck him a friendly blow on the shoulder that made the doctor take a quick step forward to keep his balance; but it gave him the grip upon himself that for a single instant he had lost.
"And, anyhow," he said, "even if he is right, it may not develop. I've known a case where it was checked for two years; and then the patient died of small-pox."