"Get him to bed, and we'll do our best," was his verdict. "He has youth and strength on his side at any rate. Please God we'll pull him round again. I've seen people worse than he is, Mrs. Penruddock, so keep your heart up. While there's life there's hope, remember. That's a proverb I always tell my patients, and one of the best that was ever invented." "I know, Doctor," gulped poor Mrs. Penruddock. "I know if anybody can pull him through, you will. But it's hard to see him looking like this all the same--Bevis, who's hardly had a day's illness in his life before." CHAPTER XX A Confession All the next week Bevis lay desperately ill, and in the gravest danger. Every morning Dr. Tremayne motored over to Grimbal's Farm to see him, and arrived back with the same unsatisfactory report. Mavis and Merle, who waited anxiously for the daily bulletin, would run in from school at lunch-time hoping for better news. When Saturday came round again they begged to be allowed to go to Chagmouth as usual. "We wouldn't be a scrap of bother to Mrs. Penruddock," said Mavis. "If Jessop may give us some lunch we could eat it on the cliffs or in the woods." "That's a great idea," declared Uncle David. "I'll do the same to-day. Jessop shall make us up a lunch basket, and we'll all have a picnic meal together somewhere before I go up to the Sanatorium. It will certainly save them trouble at the farm. Mrs. Penruddock won't want to do any cooking for us, I'm sure, when she's so busy nursing." As they motored along towards Chagmouth, the girls felt strongly, what had sometimes struck them before, that it was good to belong to a Doctor's family, and to be taking skilled help where it was so greatly needed. They had the utmost confidence in Uncle David, and knew that he would give every service that human aid could render or his long experience could suggest. He came down that morning from his patient's room with no better report: "He's still very ill. I can't get his temperature down. But I'm trying different treatment, and we must see what that will do. I'm glad I shall be about the place to-day. They know where to find me if they want me."