He glanced in the living room. Earle in an easy chair was staring at a shaded lamp while he smoked his pipe. Unobserved, the dog went silently down the hall. As he neared the bedroom door a quick obsession seized him that the boy might be in there. Ears pricked, he stepped quickly in and put his head on the little bed beside the big one. It was empty. He walked round the room, whiffing this object and that; then he lay down at the foot of the bed.
Here Earle found him. It would be all right, the man said, looking down on him from his splendid height. Pretty lonely, wasn't it? He sat down and unlaced one shoe: he held it in his hand a long time before he dropped it and unlaced the other. Half undressed, he sat silent, looking steadily into the dog's eyes. Sometimes when they were together this way he talked as if to another man. The bed creaked when he climbed in. Out of doors raindrops from the late storm dripped from the trees. Somewhere over the hills a hound was baying dismally. Frank curled up and slept.
He was awakened by the violent ringing of the telephone bell out in the hall. He was on his feet when Earle sprang out of bed and hurried barefoot to it. Even after the man started talking, the echo of that alarm bell still sounded in the vacant house, up the broad stairs, into the empty bedrooms above. Earle came back and got into his clothes, his hands as he laced his shoes trembling a bit. He hurried out of the house and jumped into the car. Intent on the slippery road ahead, he did not see the dog's eyes shining wildly in the glare of his lights as he rounded the curve at the foot of the avenue.
Ears erect, Frank stood for a moment staring at the vanishing rear light, then dashed frantically after it. He was in the pride of his strength and endurance. He was the fastest of all bird dogs, the Irish setter. Yet that mad car drew almost as swiftly away as if he were standing still in the road staring idly after it. Every muscle straining, he followed it, until the light melted into the distance. Even then, nose to the ground, he rushed the trail of those familiar wheels. At last, panting and frothing, he stopped. The night was silent. Even the roar had died away—as if it had never been. He looked bewilderedly around at the dusky fields, the foggy stars. But he continued to gallop toward the city.
The fingers of the lighted clock above the hospital door pointed to eleven as Earle ran up the steps. The night was warm, the front door open, and he hurried down the dim-lighted corridor. A light shone out of 25, and he stepped quickly in.
It was an open room, with a screened portion projecting out on the porch. In this portion was the bed. The young doctor standing at the foot glanced at him with a contraction of the muscles about the corners of the mouth. From the bed over which she leaned Marian raised to him eyes that told the story. Opposite Marian the nurse was stroking the little head and chest.
From between the two women came now and then a plaintive, inarticulate murmuring, a tired echo, it seemed, of what must have been going on long before he came. The young doctor stepped quietly to him. The fever had started rising rapidly an hour before, he explained, and the boy had grown delirious. It was the crisis—sooner than they expected.
In spite of the pounding of his heart, Steve's low-pitched question sounded matter-of-fact enough.
"What would you say of him?"
The doctor looked the father narrowly and solemnly in the eyes. "He's a very ill child, Mr. Earle."