Doctor Baker was away, and in despair they had routed Mr. Dean out of bed—the pale young man who was studying to be a veterinary. He had come, perched on the bed like a shadowy crow, taken the pulse, listened to Inga, and departed, after a wise caressing of his chin, without committing himself. Half an hour later, after a diligent consultation of certain books, he slipped back and beckoned O’Leary into the hall.
“The best thing is to let him sleep,” he said, with a professionally satisfied air. “Give him all the sleep he can get. Looks to me like nerves—and a touch—I’m not sure—but there are certain indications—lips blue, and the way he went over—a touch of heart-disease. Of course, it might be acute indigestion and then, too, he has been hitting it up pretty hard——”
“I congratulate you,” said King O’Leary, who had a prejudice against the profession, and who returned without imparting this expert opinion.
At about three o’clock, as nearly as he could judge, Dangerfield suddenly awoke, or at least seemed to awake, and sat bolt upright in bed, staring directly at the girl. This silent confrontation lasted a long moment; possibly in the darkness Dangerfield, if he were truly awake and not in a semisomnambulistic state, was staring at the girl with that startled animal intensity which had characterized his first entrance. All at once she put out her hand and said in a low, softly modulated voice:
“That’s enough; lie down again—go back to sleep.”
He did not respond immediately, and his eyes seemed to wander apprehensively into the shadows, but at last, perhaps under the pressure of her hand, he lay back. In a moment he began to stir and toss, mumbling incoherently to himself. She leaned over, taking his hand, and said something in gentle command, and presently he became quiet, and his sleep from then on was untroubled.
Toward the first filtering in of the dawn, King O’Leary, dozing at his post, woke up at a touch on his shoulder. It was Inga, looming out of the mist that streaked the room, like a dweller from the sea, one finger on her lips in warning, looking seriously down at him from her sea-blue eyes and dark face. They tiptoed across the room, looked a moment back at the unconscious figure on the bed, and stole out, closing the door. In the hall, the dusty globe shone sickly in the watery dawn.
“He’s all right now, I think,” she said, in a whisper. “It’s better for us not to be there when he awakes.”
“I—I guess I fell asleep,” said King O’Leary awkwardly, a little ashamed before the alert and young figure which showed no sign of fatigue.
“You really didn’t need to be there,” she said, and he noticed there was an awakened ring in her voice, as though a great joy or a great test had come to her. “Better get a bit of sleep now.”