She turned suddenly by the gate, and stood looking over the down. The very brilliancy of the summer coloring almost hurt her tired eyes. A familiar sound drowned the Roxton chiming as she listened, and brought a sharp twinge of anxiety to her face. Rounding the pine woods the rakish outline of her husband’s car showed up over the banks of gorse between the cottage and the high-road. The machine came panting over the down, leaving a drifting trail of dust to sully the sunlight. Catherine caught her breath with impatient dread. This day of all days, when defeat was heavy on her husband! Could they not let him rest? If these selfish sick folk only knew!
Dr. Inglis’s gold-rimmed pince-nez glittered nervously over the fence. He was a spare, boyish-looking fellow, with twine-colored hair, weak eyes, and a mouth that attempted resolute precision. Catherine hated him for the moment as he lifted his hat, and opened the gate with a deprecating and colorless smile. Dr. Inglis had the air of a young man much worried, one whose self-esteem had been severely ruffled, and who had been forbidden sleep and a hearty breakfast.
“Good-morning. A mean thing, I’m sure, to bother Dr. Murchison, but really—”
Catherine met him, looking straight and stanch in contrast to the theorist’s faded feebleness.
“What is the matter?”
“Mr. Baxter, of Boland’s Farm, is seriously ill. An obscure case. His wife wishes—”
Catherine foreshadowed what was to come. The assistant appeared to have suffered at the hands of anxious and nagging relatives.
“Well?”
“A serious case, I’m afraid. I am sure Dr. Murchison would not wish me to assume all the responsibility. The wife, Mrs. Baxter, is rather an excitable woman—”
His apologetics would have been amusing at any other season. Catherine bit her lip and ignored the limp youth’s deprecating and sensitive distress.