"Then the other motive with which I sent for you need scarcely be entered upon. It was, that you, who have watched him from his birth, might perhaps suggest some cure that the others could not."
"Some mode of treatment, I dare say you mean, Mrs. St. John. No, I fear nothing would have been effectual. I could not save his father; there is no probability that I could have saved him."
"Why is it that the St. Johns of Alnwick die in this way?" she returned, her voice taking a passionate tone.
"Nay," returned Mr. Pym, soothingly, "none may question the will of God. It is not given to us always to discern causes: we see here through a glass darkly. Of one thing we may ever rest assured, Mrs. St. John--that at the Great Final clearance we shall see how merciful God has been, how all happened for the best."
"Is he dying of the same wasting disease that his father died of?" she resumed after a pause. "Or of--of--of what he took the evening of the birthday dinner?"
"What did he take the evening of the birthday dinner?" returned Mr. Pym, asking the question in surprise. "He took nothing then, that I know of."
"He took a fright--if nothing else. I have never understood what it was that ailed him."
"Pooh! A momentary childish fright, and a fit of indigestion," said the surgeon, lightly. "They are not things to injure a boy permanently."
"He has never been well since," she said, in low tones. "Never for an hour."
"The disease must have been stealing upon him then, I suppose, and the little derangement to the system that night brought out its first symptoms," observed Mr. Pym. "Who knows but he might have caught it from his father during the latter's illness?"