“Exactly.”
“Then what do you fear?”
“There is always danger of meningitis. We can tell nothing about this until later.”
“Will it be safe to move him?” asked Helen.
“Yes; and you had better do so. I must dress and sew up the wound, and then he can be carried home on a stretcher. Suppose you leave me alone with him now, while I make his head a bit more presentable.”
Helen’s buoyancy was contagious as she and Uncle Peabody started to leave the room, but Jack’s voice recalled them.
“It is—the symbolism—of the period,” he muttered, incoherently.
“It is all right,” the doctor replied to Helen’s startled, unspoken interrogation. “He is delirious, and will be so for days.”
Satisfied with the explanation, they passed through the door into the next room, where they found Inez sitting weakly in an arm-chair, her hair dishevelled, her face white as marble, supported by the woman in whose care she had been left.
Helen hurried to her. “He is not dead!” she cried, joyfully—“do you hear, Inez? Jack is alive, and the doctor thinks he will recover!”