Doctor Nicholls would call in the course of half an hour if convenient to Mr. McRae, he was just about to visit the Bellevue House in any case.
Roderick felt again the advantages of his new position. The sensation of power was very pleasant, but it could not keep his arm from aching. The pain grew steadily worse, until at last he lay on the bed waiting impatiently.
In a short time there came a tap on the door. Thinking it was the doctor, Roderick sprang up relieved. But it was only the boy in buttons with a telegram. He signed the paper indifferently. Even the most urgent business of Elliot & Kent could not arouse his interest, he was feeling so sick and miserable and down-hearted. He opened the yellow paper slowly, and then sprang up with a cry that made the boy stop in the hall and listen. Roderick stood in the middle of the room reading the terse message again and again:
"Father ill. Come at once." E. L. Brians.
He leaped to the telephone, then dropped the receiver at the sight of a railway guide he had left upon the table. The first train he could take for home left at fifteen minutes past three in the afternoon. And it was not yet ten o'clock! He sat down on the bed, a dread fear possessing his soul. Wild surmises rushed through his mind. What could have happened? It was not twenty-four hours since he had seen his father standing in the doorway waving him farewell, the sunlight on his face and that gallant, anguished attempt at a smile! Roderick groaned aloud as he remembered. He took up the telegram again, striving to extract from its cruelly brief words some inkling of what had preceded it, some hope for the future.
A second tap at the door sent him to open it with a bound. Before him stood a professional looking man, well-dressed and well-groomed, with a small leather bag.
"Are you my patient?" he asked briskly.
"Patient?" Roderick stared at him stupidly.
"Yes; Mr. McRae, I believe? I am Doctor Nicholls."
"Oh," said Roderick. "I had forgotten all about it. Yes, come in." He stepped back and the physician eyed him curiously. He looked desperately ill, sure enough.