"And now," he went on, "I'm going to save him for you, if I can. And I've sent a nurse to take care of Letty Matthews so that you can have Sophie with you."
He had thought of everything. It came to Bettina then what he meant to the world—this great Dr. Anthony—she had hated his mission of healing—and the skill which might now mean to her a lifetime of happiness instead of unutterable woe.
She tried, faltering, to tell him something of what she was feeling.
"Hush, dear child. You could not know. And now you must be very brave, and pray your little white prayers for Justin, and, please God, we shall bring him through."
Then he had gone away and Sophie had come, and the dreadful time of waiting had begun.
Sophie, who had walked in the Valley of the Shadow with her own beloved, knew the right things to say to the child who clung to her.
"Dearest, think of all you will mean to him when he gets well. Why, there's never an opportunity for a woman like that of having the man she loves dependent upon her—you can do all of the lovely little things for him."
"But if he should not—get well?"
"You are not to think of that."
"I must think of it."