“Dr. Colton, I believe that Helga did care for your brother.”
“But is it an open field?” asked Dick impulsively.
A slight smile appeared on Haynes’ lined face. “You mean, do I want to marry Helga myself? She has never thought of me in that way. In a way it would be painful, yet I should be glad to know, while I have time, that she was going to marry some good man—but not any man whose family could not accept her as she deserves.”
“While you have time,” said the young physician slowly. “While you have——” He broke off, advanced a step and peered into the other’s face. Haynes bore the scrutiny with a grim calmness.
As Colton scrutinised, the harsh lines that he had translated into irritable temperament leaped forth into the terrible significance of long-repressed pain.
“I don’t want to be professionally intrusive,” said the young doctor slowly, “but I think—I’m afraid—I know what you mean.”
“Ah, I see you are something of a diagnostician,” said Haynes quietly.
“How long has it been going on?”
“Nearly a year. It’s just behind the left armpit. Rather an unusual case, I believe. You see, I’m not on the lists as a marrying man.”
Colton walked to and fro on the little level stretch, half a dozen times. He had seen sickness and suffering in its most helpless forms; but this calm acceptance of fate affected him beyond his professional bearing.