"It is so good to sleep!" remonstrated the young man, in the same drowsy tone.
"It is so good to have the rheumatism, or that cream of delights known hereabout as the broken-bone fever!" returned the doctor, with cool irony. "However," he added, indifferently, turning away, "chacun à son goût."
"You surely do not mean to leave him, in that way, Doctor," said a rebuking voice, beneath the window. Miss Lyte, fastening up a rosebush, in the dusk outside, had heard the whole.
"Certainly not, if it pleases you to wish otherwise," replied the doctor, gallantly.
And returning to the charge, Doctor Remy did not remit his efforts until he had gotten the half-vexed young man upon his feet, and forced him to pace two or three times up and down the office. Thereupon Bergan was fain to avow that his limbs were stiff and sore, and he had no mind for further exercise.
"Just as I expected," said the doctor, calmly.
Without further words, he marched Bergan off to bed, and did not let him alone, until, by dint of various outward and inward applications, he had restored natural warmth and circulation to his chilled, benumbed frame. In doing this, the young man was effectually roused; and memory and thought came back with consciousness.
"Doctor," said he, suddenly, "I almost envy you your profession."
"Why?"
"Because, as you told me at our first meeting, your duty is always plainly one thing—to save life."