"Thank you," said John.
The two doctors shook hands with him and departed.
"You may as well keep your tickets," said the younger one as they went downstairs. "He does not mean going."
"He is a queer little devil," said Tom's and Edward's father. "But I like him. There's grit in him, and he watches outside that room like a dog. I wish I could have got him out of the house to-morrow, poor little beggar."
John stood quite still in the middle of the long, empty drawing-room when they were gone. A nameless foreboding of some horrible calamity was upon him. And yet—and yet—they had said he was going to get better, to be quite strong again. He waylaid the trained nurse for the twentieth time, and she said the same.
He suffered himself to be taken out for a walk, after hearing from her that Mr. Goodwin wished it; and in the afternoon he consented to go with George, Miss Fane's cheerful, good-natured young footman, to the "Christian Minstrels." But he lay awake all night, and in the morning after breakfast he crept noiselessly back to the stairs. It was a foggy morning, and the gas was lit. Jessie, the stout, silly housemaid, always in a perspiration or tears, was sweeping the landing just above him, sniffing audibly as she did so.
"Poor young gentleman," she was saying below her breath to her colleague. "I can't a-bear the thought of the operation. It seems to turn my inside clean upside down."
John clutched hold of the banisters. His heart gave one throb, and then stood quite still.
"Coleman says as both 'is 'ands must go," said the other maid also in a whisper. "She told me herself. She says she's never seen such a case all her born days. They've been trying all along to save one, but they can't. They're to be took hoff to-day."
John understood at last.