The Doctor got up quickly from his chair. He knocked the ash from his cigar and laid it down on the tray. “Well,” he said, lightly, “I must be off.” He squared his shoulders and held out his hand; its grip upon her own trembled very slightly, but he smiled sunnily. “I’ll come back for some more music some day.”
“Do,” the girl said. She had risen and was smiling too.
The Doctor looked about the room wistfully. “Jolly place,—I don’t get up very often, do I?”
“Not very.”
They smiled at each other again, then the girl, turning abruptly away, walked to the window and came back with a double handful of yellow flowers.
“Will you carry these to your wife? They are the first of the year.”
She held the door open for him, and from the little landing watched him down the stairs. At their turn he glanced up for a moment, holding his hat raised silently. She waved him a mute acknowledgment, then going into the room again, closed the door.
The firelight still leaped languidly on the hearth, and on the half-smoked cigar and pile of ashes in the tray. The girl stood a moment looking at these things and the chair, then walked quietly to the piano and sat down before it. But she did not play again.
Meantime the Doctor, an erect and urgent presence in the dusk, had driven through dim streets and climbed again the four flights of the morning, to find the hush of heaven fallen on the house.
“I knew you could save him!” said the pale mother only, lifting blind eyes of worship from the couch.