"Is it worse, dear?" she asked anxiously.
"It's a little bad—just now. I'll go to bed. It will be better then." He spoke slowly, as though very tired.
"Won't you take something for it, Karl?" she persisted. "Won't you?"
"I do not know of anything to take that would do any good,
Ernestine,"—and he could not quite keep the quiver out of those words.
"But other people take things. There are things. Let me go out and get you something."
He shook his head.
"Doctors don't take much stock in medicine," he said, with a touch of his usual humour.
She wanted to stay with him until he went to sleep. She wanted to put cold cloths on his head. It was hard to avoid Ernestine's tenderness.
"It did not show anything," he assured himself, pleadingly, when alone. "It only showed that it was going to show in the morning. I knew that. I knew all the time I was going to know in the morning. I'll not go to pieces. I'll not be a fool about it," he kept repeating.
But a little later Ernestine was sure she heard him groan. She could not keep away from that.