"And your own?"
"Yes, my own."
"I so understand it. May I say in my defence that I missed your telegram and only saw it when it was sent after me on the train, but now I am here." She had not the courage to say what she would have liked to say, and he went on. "General Hancock saw me a day or two back. What he said of your husband gave me at once a personal interest in him. Isn't it odd how one is brought to realize what a small place our world is? I was at Port Delaware before the war ended and saw there—I was on inspection duty—a Confederate Colonel, Henry Grey—a prisoner. Is he not a relation of the handsome Miss Grey we met on the avenue?"
"My niece. He is my brother."
"Indeed! I gave some advice about his wound—it was not serious. May I talk to you a little about your husband?"
She felt herself cornered, and could not escape without discourtesy, of which she was quite incapable; "Or," he added, "may I not rather talk first to Colonel Penhallow, and later to you? It is, I take it, his view of this very grave matter which naturally influences you."
For the briefest of moments she made no reply. Then she stood up and felt the force conveyed in the personality of George Askew, as he towered over her, a man of unusual height. She looked up at the large kind face the long sad wards knew so well. The lines of thought were deeply graven below a broad forehead thinly crowned with yellow hair now fast greying. He showed no sign of impatience. "Yes," she said, "that will be better—you must see Mr. Penhallow before you talk to me. If he consents to do what you want to do—I—Well, Dr. Askew, I am just now too angry to reason. Have the kindness to follow me."
She was unwilling to give her husband any more choice than John Penhallow had given her. If the Colonel became irritable and declined to accept the visit of this impressive personage as a surgeon, well, that must of course end the matter. But as he went upstairs behind her, there arose in her mind a storm-battered hope.
The surgeon was smiling and so far pleased. He was greatly interested in the case he was about to see. It had excited some discussion as unusual, and the unusual in surgery or medicine has many times been the guide to broad highways of usefulness where the daring of the one has made easy the way for the many. Now he meant to win the confidence of the man, if he proved sane enough to reason. He might also have to make more complete his conquest of this coldly civil hostess. It was for him an old game, and he played it with tact and skill.
She paused at the door. "Pray wait a moment, Doctor. No—he has wakened,
I hear him." He stopped her.