"Shall we go and speak to him?"
"No, don't go," she said. "He and Dick are getting on famously—let us leave them to make friends. John, do you think——"
"I don't know," he said slowly. "Somehow when I saw him beside Dick a queer wave of hope came over me. I'd almost forgotten what hope was like. He looks clever, Jean."
"And kind," she said. "Let us go and find the ship's doctor, and ask him about him."
The ship's doctor, a grizzled old Scot, had only good words to say of Neil Fraser.
"He's going to be a great man," he said. "I heard of him in London from my brother—a doctor in Harley Street. He did some great work at Munich, did Fraser, and I knew of a case he tackled in London with extraordinary results. Oh, I'd certainly advise you to talk to him, Mr. Lester. He's not practising, of course, but I'm certain he wouldn't refuse to give you an opinion, at least."
"Does he only doctor spines?" asked Mrs. Lester.
"From all I hear," said the Scot drily, "he's disinclined to recognise any part of the body but the spine! He's spine mad." He hesitated. "I tell you this, Mrs. Lester; whatever opinion he gives you I don't think you need go past it. If Neil Fraser can't cure your boy there is no one, in Australia at any rate, who can."
Outside the surgery the Lesters looked in each other's eyes.
"Jean!" he said. "Take care, dearest; don't let yourself hope too much."