The sound of wheels crunching the gravel, with a sudden stop at the porch, had come to their ears.
“Come out av the room, Ma'am,” Mike besought Mrs. Porter; “come out av the room an' lave the docthor bring the boss 'round.” He signaled to Cynthia with his eyes for help in this argument.
“Yes, Mrs. Porter,” seconded Cynthia, “go out to the porch; Miss Allis and I will remain here with the doctor to get what's needed.”
“Ah, a fall, eh,” commented Dr. Rathbone, cheerily, coming briskly into the room. Then he caught Mike's eye; it closed deliberately, and the Irishman's head tipped never so slightly toward Mrs. Porter.
“Now 'clear the room,' as they say in court,” continued the doctor, with a smile, understanding Mike's signal. “We mustn't have people about to agitate Porter when he comes to his senses. I'll need Cynthia, and perhaps you'd better wait, too, Gaynor. Just take care of your mother, Miss Allis. I'll have your father about in a jiffy.”
“He's jest stunned; that's all!” added Mike, with his kindly, parrotlike repetition.
It seemed a million years to the wife that she waited for the doctor's outcoming. Twice she cried in anguish to Allis that she must go in; must see her husband.
“He may die,” she pleaded, “and I may never see his eyes again. Oh, let me go, Allis, I'll come back, I will.”
“Wait here, mother,” commanded the girl. “Doctor Rathbone will tell us if—if—” she could not finish the sentence—could not utter the dread words, but clasping her mother's hands firmly in her own, kept her in the chair. Once Mike came out and said, “He's jest stunned, Ma'am. The docthor says he'll be all roight by an' by.”
“He won't die—”