He was gone but a moment, then he came quickly into the kitchen, his face very white.
“She is worse!” he said in a husky whisper. “Why didn't you tell me so?” but he did not wait for an answer. “Where is the child?” he demanded.
“I carried him across the back lots to Mis' Gibbs a spell ago. I couldn't tend him and her, too, he was real fretful.”
“I must go for the doctor,” said Stephen.
“You needn't, Mr. Landray, Mis' Gibbs said she'd go to the saloon for him; I seen her lantern just a moment ago. You'd best have something to eat,” she urged.
He turned away impatiently.
“I'm not hungry. Have the doctor come up-stairs as soon as he gets here.”
But when Arling arrived a few moments later, accompanied by Gibbs, and joined Stephen in the chamber above where he sat holding his wife's hand in both his own, he merely shook his head. It was as he had expected, only the end had been longer deferred than he had thought possible. He stole from the room and rejoined Gibbs in the kitchen.
“You tell him, Gibbs—I can't,” he said.
Gibbs rubbed his straggling unkempt beard with a tremulous hand.