“There! You are coming to look at it sensibly, Evelyn,” he said encouragingly.
She drew away from his caress.
“No, no! I know what is there. I had rather see him dead in his bed there to-night than to see that fire in his eyes grow and burn and kill him!”
Suddenly she burst into tears.
“To fear it always. To think of it day and night. To know that it will come back and seize him some hour when I am not there to help him! O God, why did it come to me? What have I done?”
She wept miserably, but when he tried to comfort her she held herself aloof. In their misery they were apart, God dealing with each one in his sorrow separately.
“Come, Evelyn!” the husband broke out. “Enough of this! To-morrow we’ll have in a doctor, the best you can find in the city. Maybe he’ll just give him a dose of something and jog his liver.”
But his wife, who had been standing beside the window, her forehead pressed against the cold pane, whirled about and faced him.
“Did you—ever think—that—you were old Oscar’s son?”
“What put that into your head? I told you all I knew—the story old Oscar told me. The whole camp had it the same way.”