When the allotted time at the infirmary had expired, the young doctor, who had studied the case with such zeal and attended his patient with the tender care of a son, brought him back to his home.
After having put her father to bed, to rest from the weariness of the trip, Alice turned around to the waiting physician, a foreboding anxiety in her heart, and tried to make her question quite natural:
"Well, doctor, how soon can your friend, the specialist, have father well again?"
After a pause Dr. Emerson replied, "He will not continue on the case, Miss Gordon."
"O, doctor, what do you mean? He has not given it up? I can not relinquish hope—I won't."
"And I do not wish you to, Miss Gordon. Dr. Helm did not find your father's condition to be what he had expected, but we are going to begin at once a treatment that has been practiced with great success in Germany, in cases like his."
Nothing more was said at that time between them, but the memory of that conversation was indelibly printed on Alice's mind, and a long night of the keenest anguish she had ever experienced, followed.
She thought, and thought, and thought, until the sounds from the sick-chamber near by, would bring a flood of tender memories and her pillow would be wet with tears.
It was thus that most of the night was spent. Toward morning she sank into a deep slumber, but, when she wakened, a terrible leaden weight seemed to oppress her, and it was several hours before the buoyant cheerfulness, with which she was by nature endowed, could again assert itself.
After several days and nights spent thus, Alice came to the wise conclusion that the situation must be faced, for obvious reasons.