“This evening,” Miriam responded. “I left her after breakfast. Mrs. Nash prefers to have me do night duty. How did you find her?”
“Her general condition is better, but frankly, there are certain symptoms that puzzle me,” admitted Roberts. “I noticed by your chart that she had a subnormal temperature this morning. Her temperature is still down, her pulse sluggish, and respiration rapid.”
“She insists that she has the flu,” Miriam pointed out. “But the symptoms are contradictory.”
“True.” Roberts adjusted his eyeglasses. “That is what puzzles me. I have made a careful examination and find both lungs are clear. I feel that I have not located the real trouble.”
“You don’t consider her able to sit up out of bed?” questioned Miriam. “I ask because she insists upon doing so.”
“Most certainly not,” promptly. “The old house is full of draughts and improperly heated, and there might be danger of pneumonia in her run-down condition. I left a few directions on the chart for you,” added Roberts; then as Miriam, with a slight bow, started to walk past him toward the house, he detained her with a gesture. “Was the clergyman, who accompanied Miss Carter on Monday night to Abbott’s sick room, her aunt’s husband, the Reverend Doctor Nash?”
At the direct question Miriam’s color rose. “I am not sure of the relationship,” she replied. “But to the best of my recollection, he certainly mentioned that his name was Nash.”
In silence Roberts fingered his hat which he had not replaced on his head since stopping to speak to Miriam.
“And Betty Carter denied that she had visited Paul,” he muttered. “It is most singular!”
He echoed Miriam’s thoughts, but she forbore to comment. Taking a mere acquaintance into her confidence was foreign to her reserved nature. Suddenly Roberts turned to her, his fine eyes twinkling with one of his rare smiles.