Rosemary prepared a breakfast tray and Matilda took it up. "It's better for you to stay away, Rosemary," she said, "for we don't want her to get excited." When she returned, she reported that the old lady had, with evident difficulty, eaten a little oatmeal and choked down a cup of coffee. She was calmer, but unable to speak.
The unaccustomed silence of the house affected them both strangely. Grandmother might be up-stairs and helpless but the powerful impress of her personality still lingered in the rooms below. Her red-and-black plaid shawl, hanging from the back of her chair, conveyed a subtle restraint; the chair itself seemed as though she had just left it and was likely to return to it at any moment.
When the doctor came again, in the afternoon, Matilda went up-stairs with him, while Rosemary waited anxiously in the dining-room. It seemed a long time until they came back and held a brief whispered conference at the front door. When he finally went out, Matilda came into the dining-room, literally tense with excitement.
The Doctor's Word
"He says," she began, sinking into a chair, "that he don't know. I like it in him myself, for a doctor that'll admit he don't know, when he don't, instead of leavin' you to find out by painful experience, is not only scarce, but he's to be trusted when you come across him.
"He says she may get better and she may not—that in a little while she may be up and movin' around and talkin' again about the same as she always did, and again, she may stay just like she is, or get worse. He said he'd do what he could, but he couldn't promise anything—that only time would tell.
"If she stays like this, she's got to be took care of just the same as if she was a baby—fed and turned over and bathed,—and if she gets better she can help herself some. Seems funny, don't it? Yesterday she was rampagin' around and layin' down the law to you, and to-day she can't say yes or no."
"She said yesterday," Rosemary returned, "that she'd never speak to me again as long as she lived. I wonder if it's true!"
"I wonder!" echoed Matilda. "I'd forgotten that."
The Way of Sacrifice