"Yes," Margaret assented quickly; "I shall not give up—never!"
Through a doctor whom he knew Falkner arranged the visit to the surgeon, who was difficult of access. And he went in the evening after the visit to learn the result.
"He thinks there is a chance!" and Margaret added more slowly: "It is a great risk. I supposed it must be so."
"You will take it?"
"I think," she said slowly, "that Ned would want me to. You see he is like me. It may accomplish nothing, Dr. Renault said. It may be partially successful…. Or it may be—fatal. He was very kind,—spent all the afternoon here. I liked him immensely; he was so direct.'
"When will it be?"
"Next week."
The operation took place, and was not fatal. "Now we shall have to wait," the surgeon said to the mother,—"and hope! It will be months before we shall know finally what is the result."
"I shall wait and hope!" Margaret replied to him. Renault, who had a chord in common with this Southern woman, stroked her hand gently as he left. "Better take the little chap away somewhere and get a change yourself," he said.
It was a still, hot night of late June, the last time that Falkner climbed the hill to the old place. The summer, long delayed, had burst these last days with scorching fury. Margaret was to leave on the morrow for Bedmouth, where she would spend the summer with old Mrs. Pole. She was lying on the veranda couch. She smiled as Falkner drew a chair to her side, the frank smile from the deep blue eyes, that she gave only to her children and to him, and there was a joyous note in her voice:—