The doctor was stooping over the table writing a prescription. A prescription! What did they want with such a thing now? He looked up when he heard her step. His face was beaming. He put down his pen and came forward, holding out both hands. “I have the best of news for you this morning, my dear lady,” he said.
Letitia was too much startled to speak. She would not, could not permit herself to believe her eyes. She drew her hands impatiently from his clasp.
“The crisis has come—and passed,” he said. “The fever has gone. I find his temperature almost normal, and the pulse quite quiet.”
“What?” said Letitia. She would not believe her ears. She had no time to regulate her countenance to look as if she were glad. Her jaw fell, her eyes glared. “What?” she said, and she could say no more.
“I do not wonder you are overcome. I feel myself as if it were too much. Sit down and take a moment to recover——”
She sat down mechanically and glared at him. Her feeling was that if there had been a knife on the table she would have struck at him with it—a sharp one that would have turned that smile into a grimace and made an end of it. Too much! The fever gone, gone! She panted for breath, fiercely, like a wild beast.
“It is wonderful, but it is true,” said Dr. Barker. He added after a moment: “It is curious the different ways we take it. This good little woman, who always hoped the best—cries—and you, Mrs. Parke, you——”
“Do you mean that he will live?” Letitia said.
“I hope so—I hope so. The only danger now is weakness; if we can feed him up and keep him quiet. It is all a question of strength——”
“You have said that ever since you were called in.”