"Oh! Look, look, Joan, what is it? Oh, I'm frightened!"
They sent for Doctor Thomas, who ordered Milly to bed and examined her. His face was grey when he looked up at Joan, and they left the room together and went downstairs to Mrs. Ogden.
"It's terribly sudden and quite unexpected," Doctor Thomas said.
"But I simply can't believe it," wailed Mrs. Ogden. "She comes of such healthy stock, I simply can't believe it!"
"I'm afraid there is very little doubt, Mrs. Ogden; I myself have no doubt. Still, we had better have a consultation."
Mrs. Ogden protested: "But blood may come from all sorts of places; her stomach, her throat. She may even have bitten her tongue, poor child, when she was coughing."
The doctor shook his head. "No," he said; "I'm afraid not; but I should like to have a consultation at once, if you don't mind."
"I will not have a specialist in my house again," Mrs. Ogden repeated for about the fiftieth time in the last few months. "It was your specialist who killed my poor James!"
The doctor looked helplessly at Joan, and she saw fear in his old eyes. She felt certain that he was conscious of having made a terrible mistake, and was asking her dumbly to forgive, and to help him. His mouth worked a little as he took off his dimmed glasses to polish them.
"No one knows how this grieves me," he said unsteadily. "Why, I've known her since she was a baby."