"Four of them!" she gasped frantically. "Four of them in the car! Frank's brought him! Frank's brought him!"
CHAPTER XX
THE STORY OF LEO
It was evening. The afterglow of sunset still shed its golden radiance upon a blackened world, striving vainly to burnish with its gentle luster the depressing aspect of charred fields. The cool August breezes, usually so fresh and sweet at sundown, were tainted, scarcely unpleasantly, with the reek of dead fire.
Two figures, apparently absorbed in themselves, were pacing slowly the broad trail which fronted Deep Willows. They were talking, talking earnestly of those things which concerned their lives, while their anxious hearts were waiting with almost sickening dread, for the moment when a summons should reach them, that they might learn the verdict of hope or disaster which Providence had in store for them.
They knew, these two, these boy and girl lovers, that the life of the one they had learned to love so dearly was hovering in the balance. They knew that the great surgeon, who had journeyed so far, and under such strenuous conditions, was waging the human side of a great battle.
Was he once more to be victorious over Death, or would that ruthless specter at last defy him? The man was accounted infallible by a thankful world. He had come to the rescue fully prepared for a great fight. He had brought not only his own dresser, but also his own anesthetist, while two competent nurses and another medical man were on the premises. So these two hoped, while their hearts were yet plunged in a perfect maelstrom of fears.
They were striving with all their might to pass the hours of waiting. Professor Hinkling had been with his patient from the moment of his arrival soon after noon. He was still with her now, when the great August sun had set amid its glory of fiery cloud.
Phyllis halted in her walk. Quite abruptly she raised a pair of earnest, admiring eyes to her lover's face. In their depths lay all that which can raise a man to a perfect paradise of joy and hope. Never had her woman's attraction been more evident to young Frank than at that moment. Never in his life had he realized more fully than at this moment all he had so recently striven to crush out of his life and deny himself for ever.