"Jen," he cried, "Jen—speak to me, Jen—to your ain man Yabel! Say that this man lies! Tell me ye are no gaun to dee, Jen—Jen, my Jen!"
And at the voice of that strange crying the doctor stood back, for he knew that no earthly physician had power to stay a soul's agony.
Then, like a tide that wells up full to the flood-mark, the slow love rose in the eyes of his wife. Her lips moved. He bent his head eagerly. They seemed to form his name.
"Yes, yes," he said eagerly, "'Yabel, Yabel,' I hear that! What mair? Tell me—oh, tell me, ye are no gaun to leave me!"
He bent his head lower, holding his breath and laying his hand on his own heart as if to still its dull, thick beating. But though the pallid lips seemed to move, no words came, and Yabel McQuhirr heaved up his head and struck his palm upon his brow.
"I canna hear!" he wailed. "She will dee, and no speak to me!" Then he turned fiercely upon the doctor, as if he did not know him. "Who are you that spies on my grief, standing there and doing nothing? Get oot o' my hoose, lest I do ye a hurt."
And the indignant little man went at the word, mounting his sheltie and riding away across the moors without once turning his head, the "Penang lawyer" tapping unwontedly upon the rounded indignant flank of his little mare.
When Yabel turned again to his wife there were tears in her eyes, and the heart of the Man of Wrath was softened within him.
"I am a fool," he said, "an angry fool. I have driven him away that came to do her good. I will call him back."
But though he made the hills to echo, and the startled sheep to run together into frightened bunches, the insulted little doctor upon the sheltie never turned in his saddle.