CHAPTER XXXI
Philip's physical condition had improved during six weeks of masterful nursing. Isabel was at last permitted to see him for ten short minutes; then she kept her promise and went from the room. This morning she sank into a chair, mutely listening to the doctor's voice.
"He has come out much better than I expected," he confessed. "Our nurses have left nothing undone. The patient has responded to the limit of his burned-down condition. We shall save him."
She lifted a face wet with tears. "Oh," she begged, "may I help—do some little thing? I have waited so long. It has been hard, hard, to see other women always at his side, when his wife might not even give him a glass of water."
Rebellion which she had hidden through past days burst forth. "May I not let one of the nurses go? I long to do my natural part."
Dr. Judkin stopped pacing. "Listen to me," he commanded. She braced herself for fresh disappointment, knowing well the superior wisdom of the man's despotic practice. "Listen!" he repeated. "You have already done what few women can do—submitted magnificently to a passive part. And you have helped me more than you will ever know." She felt a new demand back of his words. "Now is the crucial test of your will power. I have been waiting anxiously for this particular point in your husband's case. The physical collapse has been arrested and he is now ready for a complete change of scene. He needs a sea voyage, with continued quiet, but nothing familiar to arouse consciousness of past events."
"Oh," she cried, "I may take him abroad? Perhaps to Japan? I can go to any part of the world which you think best for him." Her voice rang joy. Color ran into her cheeks. "You have been so good to me—so patient with my own impatience. And I knew that you could save him! Something told me that first awful morning that you would help me, that you would be my friend."
The doctor stood powerless to tell her his real decision. Through weeks he had felt the passionate suffering beneath her well-bred composure. Character had stilled her bursting heart. He frowned, looking down at a pattern in the rug.
"You have not quite understood me," he said at last. "The change of which I speak must be absolute, entirely outside of—of—tempting association. As yet the patient must sink reviving interest in life to the dead level of his nurse, to the advent of meals served on the deck of a quiet ship."
"You mean that I should engage a private yacht?" Isabel eagerly asked. "I know of one owned by a friend who will let me have it. Shall I wire at once?"