"Well, Laurence, the day that I arrived there, I mean at Sophy's house, I felt very ill. I suppose the journey had tired me, for I fainted——" Again she hesitated, as if not knowing how to frame her next sentence.
"Sophy was horribly frightened. She would send for her doctor, and though he said there was nothing much the matter with me, he insisted that I ought to see another man—a specialist."
Peggy looked up with an anxious expression in her blue eyes—but again Vanderlyn's ears and eyes were holden. He habitually felt for the medical profession the unreasoning dislike, almost the contempt, your perfectly healthy human being, living in an ailing world, often—in fact almost always—does feel for those who play the rôle of the old augurs in our modern life. Mrs. Pargeter had never been a strong woman; she was often ill, often in the doctor's hands. So it was that Vanderlyn did not realise the deep import of her next words——
"Sophy went with me to London—she was really very kind about it all, and you would have liked her better, Laurence, if you had seen her that day. The specialist did all the usual things, then he told me to go on much as I had been doing, and to avoid any sudden shock or excitement—in fact he said almost exactly what that dear old French doctor said to me a year ago——"
She waited a moment: "Then, Laurence, the next day, when Sophy thought I had got over the journey to London," Peggy smiled at him a little whimsical smile, "she told me that she thought I ought to know—it was her duty to tell me—that I had heart disease, and that, though I should probably live a long time, it was possible I might die at any moment——"
A sudden wrath filled the dark, sensitive face of the man bending over her.
"What nonsense!" he exclaimed with angry decision. "What will the doctors say next, I wonder! I wish to God you would make up your mind, Peggy, once and for all, never to see a doctor again! I beg of you, if only for my sake, to promise me that you will not go again to any doctor till I give you permission to do so. You don't know what I went through five years ago when one of those charlatans declared that he would not answer for the consequences if you didn't winter South, and—and Tom would not let you go!"
He paused, and then added more gently, "And yet nothing happened—you were none the worse for spending that winter in cold Leicestershire!"
"Yes, that's true," she answered submissively, "I will make you the promise you ask, Laurence. I daresay I have been foolish in going so often to doctors; I don't know that they have ever done me much good."
His eyes, having now become quite accustomed to the dim light, suddenly seemed to see in her face a slight change; a look of fatigue and depression had crept over her mouth. He told himself with a pang that after all she was a delicate, fragile human being—or was it the blue shade which threw a strange pallor on the face he was scrutinising with such deep, wistful tenderness?