“Madam!”
“I wish Dr. Murchison had come himself; my husband has such faith in him.”
Dr. Inglis grew hot with noble indignation.
“Just as you please,” he said, with hauteur, yet looking awed by the tall women beside the bed. “My qualifications are as good as any man’s in Roxton.”
The conceit failed before those two hard and Calvinistic faces.
“I believe in experience, sir; no offence to you.”
“Then you wish me to send for Dr. Murchison?”
“I do.”
And the theoretical youth experienced guilty relief despite the insult to his age and dignity.
Sunday morning came with a flood of gold over Marley Down. The greens and purples were brilliant beyond belief; a blue haze covered the distant hills; woodland and pasture glimmered in the valleys. The faint chiming of the bells of Roxton stirred the air as Kate Murchison walked the garden before the cottage, looking like one who had been awake all night beside a sick-bed. Her face betrayed lines of exhaustion, a dulling of the natural freshness, streaks of shadow under the eyes. She had that half-blind expression, the expression of those whose thoughts are engrossed by sorrow; the trick of seeing without comprehending the significance of the things about her.