“Mrs. Fleming wants you to come at once, Doctor Burns; Mr. Sherwood has a sinking spell.”
“Tell her I am coming,” and he beckoned Daisie to follow.
She shrank back, and he said, almost sternly:
“It may mean death. Can you be so—heartless?”
He could not bear to lose his patient. As for her—who pitied her? Who considered for a moment whether her life was to be wrecked or not, poor Daisie Bell?
He was rich, and she was poor—that made all the difference in the world. They all thought she should be proud of her good luck.
She was like a solitary leaf blown hither and thither by the winds of destiny, with no volition of her own. Why struggle against overwhelming fate?
She looked appealingly into the old doctor’s stern, questioning eyes, and faltered despairingly:
“You can tell him that—that I will—stay.”
Then, before he could put out an arresting hand, she swayed like a broken flower, and fell unconscious at his feet.