[Illustration: But she did not speak]
Dr. Pendegrast approached Lynde and rested one finger on his arm. "You had better go now," the doctor whispered hastily. "I will come to you by and by."
Lynde was sitting on the side of the bed in his own room in the broad daylight. He had been sitting motionless in one posture for an hour—perhaps two hours, he could not tell how long—when Dr. Pendegrast opened the door without pausing to knock. Lynde felt the cold creeping about his heart.
"Doctor," he said desperately, "don't tell me!"
"Mr. Lynde," said Dr. Pendegrast, walking up to the bedside and speaking very slowly, as if he were doubtful of his own words and found it difficult to articulate them, "a change has taken place, but it is a change for the better. I believe that Ruth will live."
"She will live!"
"We thought she was sinking; she thought so herself, the poor child. You were worth a thousand doctors to her, that's my belief. Mrs. Denham was afraid to tell her you had gone to Paris to fetch us, thinking it would excite her. Ruth imagined that her aunt had offended you, and thought you had gone not to return."
"Ah!"
"That troubled her, in the state she was in—troubled her mightily. She has been able to take a few spoonfuls of nourishment," the doctor went on irrelevantly; "her pulse is improved; if she has no drawback she will get well."
Lynde looked around him bewilderedly for a moment; then he covered his face with his hands. "I thought she was dying!" he said under his breath.