"The local doctor here, our own special doctor in town, and the great specialist, Sir Henry Powell." "Good God, that man!" said Ogilvie, starting back. "Then she must have been badly hurt?" "She was badly hurt." "Well, what did the doctors say? Give me their verdict. I insist upon knowing." "They--they--of course, they are wrong, Phil. You are hurting me; I wish you would not hold my hands so tightly." "Speak!" was his only response. "They said at the time--of course they were mistaken, doctors often are. You cannot imagine how many diagnoses of theirs have been proved to be wrong. Yes, I learned that queer word; I did not understand it at first. Now I know all about it." "Speak!" This one expression came from Ogilvie's lips almost with a hiss. "Well, they said at the time that--oh, Phil, you kill me when you look at me like that! They said the case was----" "Hopeless?" asked the man between his white lips. "They certainly _said_ it. But, Phil; oh, Phil, dear, they are wrong!" He let her hands go with a sudden jerk. She almost fell. "You knew it, and you could have that going on?" he said. "Go back to your bazaar." "I certainly will. I think you are terribly unkind." "You can have those people here, and that band playing, when you know _that_? Well, if such scenes give you pleasure at such a time, go and enjoy them." He strode into the house. She looked after his retreating figure; then she took out her daintily laced handkerchief, applied it to her eyes, and went back to her duties. "I am a martyr in a good cause," she said to herself; "but it is bitterly hard when one's husband does not understand one." CHAPTER XIX. This was better than the phantom ship. This was peace, joy, and absolute delight. Sibyl need not now only lie in her father's arms at night and in her dreams. She could look into his face and hear his voice and touch his hand at all hours, day and night. Her gladness was so real and beautiful that it pervaded the entire room, and in her presence Ogilvie scarcely felt pain. He held her little hand and sat by her side, and at times when she was utterly weary he even managed to raise her in his arms and pace the room with her, and lay her back again on her bed without hurting her, and he talked cheerfully in her presence, and smiled and even joked with her, and they were gay together with a sort of tender gaiety which had never been theirs in the old times. At night, especially, he was her best comforter and her kindest and most tender nurse. For the first two days after his return Ogilvie scarcely left Sibyl. During all that time he asked no questions of outsiders. He did not even inquire for the doctor's verdict. Where was the good of asking a question which could only receive one answer? The look on the child's face was answer enough to her father.