“As you wish,” was the reply.
The young man started to the door, but came back, in terrible distress. “I have one prayer to offer you sir; arrange it so that my wife—so that no one will know. If my wife learned that it is I who am the cause—! It is for her that I implore you! She—she isn’t to blame.”
Said the doctor: “I will do everything in my power that she may be kept ignorant of the true nature of the disease.”
“Oh, how I thank you!” murmured George. “How I thank you!”
“Do not thank me; it is for her, and not for you, that I will consent to lie.”
“And my mother?”
“Your mother knows the truth.”
“But—”
“I pray you, sir—we have enough to talk about, and very serious matters.”
So George went to the door and called his mother. She entered and greeted the doctor, holding herself erect, and striving to keep the signs of grief and terror from her face. She signed to the doctor to take a seat, and then seated herself by a little table near him.