"Well," he said, "you shall stay.--Perhaps you will stay with us as well, Miss Raleigh," he added. "We can shade the light; and he is so utterly exhausted, that even if we talk, I don't think he will wake." "And he will not be worse?" whispered Lady Scarlett. "People _will_ not have any confidence in their medical man. Come, now, I think you might trust me, after what I have done." "I do trust you, Doctor Scales, and believe in you as my husband's best and dearest friend," cried Lady Scarlett. "Heaven bless you for what you have done!" She hurriedly kissed his hand; and then, after a glance at her husband's pale face, she went and sat upon the floor beside Aunt Sophia's chair, laid her hands upon the elder lady's knees, and hid her face, sitting there so motionless that she seemed to be asleep. "I wish she would not do that," muttered the doctor; and then: "I hate a woman who behaves in that lapdog way. I never liked her, and I don't think I ever shall." It was a change indeed, the long watch through that night, and it was with a sigh of relief that the doctor saw the first grey light of morning stealing through the window. Only a few hours before and all had been so bright and sunny, now all was depression and gloom. When they started for their water trip trouble seemed a something that could not fall upon so happy a home. Aunt Sophia's fears had only been a motive for mirth, and since then, with a rapidity that was like the lightning's flash, this terrible shock had come upon them. "Ah, well!" mused the doctor, as he stood at the window holding the blind a little on one side so as to gaze out at the grey sky, "it might have been worse, and it will make him more careful for the future. My word though, it was precious lucky that I was in the boat." He yawned slightly now, for there was no denying that the doctor was terribly sleepy. It was bad enough to lose a night's rest, but the exhaustion he had suffered from his efforts made it worse, and in spite of his anxiety and eagerness to save his friend, there was no concealing the fact that unless he had risen and walked about now and then he would have fallen asleep. Just as the sky was becoming flecked with tiny clouds of gold and orange, the first brightness that had been seen since the evening before, a few muttered words and a restless movement made doctor and wife hurry to the extempore couch. "Kate! Where's Kate?" exclaimed Scarlett in a hoarse cracked voice. "I am here, dear--here at your side," she whispered, laying her cheek to his. "Has the boat gone over? Save Kate!" "We are all safe, dear husband." "Fool!--idiot!--to go so near. So dangerous!" he cried excitedly. "Jack--Jack, old man--my wife--my wife!" "It's all right, old fellow," said the doctor cheerily. "There, there; you only had a bit of a ducking--that's all." "Scales--Jack!--Where am I? Where's Kate?" "Here, dear love, by your side."