Ogilvie was speaking he drew his wife gradually but surely away
from the fashionably dressed people and the big-wigs who were too
polite to stare, but who were all the time devoured with curiosity. It
began to be whispered in the crowd that Ogilvie had returned, and that
his wife and he were looking at certain matters from different points
of view. There were several men and women present, who, although they
encouraged Mrs. Ogilvie to have the bazaar, nevertheless thought her a
heartless woman, and these people now were rather rejoicing in
Ogilvie's attitude. He did not look like a person who could be trifled
with. He drew his wife toward the shrubbery.

"I will see the child in a minute," he said; "nothing else matters.
She is ill, unable to walk, lying down. I want to hear full
particulars. If you will not tell them to me, I will send for the
doctor. The question I wish answered is this, _what do the doctors
say_?"

Tears filled Mrs. Ogilvie's pretty, dark eyes.

"Really, Phil, you are too cruel. After these weeks of anxiety, which
only a mother can understand, you speak to me in that tone, just as if
the dear little creature were nothing to me at all."

"You can cry, Mildred, as much as you please, and you can talk all the
sentimental stuff that best appeals to you, but answer my question
now. What do the doctors say, and what doctors has she seen?"

"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.

"Y