She flushed at the implication of selfishness, but said nothing.

“How — how is that? Don’t you think so?” he persisted kindly.

“I reckon you can’t feel what I feel, Doctor. Why should I make his heart troubled when he must stay there? David knows I hate it to bide so long without him. He — he knows. If he could get to come back, don’t you guess he’d come right quick, anyway? Would he come any sooner for his son than for me?” It was the doctor’s turn for silence. She asked again, this time with a tremor in her voice. “You reckon he would, Doctor?”

“No! Of — of course not,” he cried.

“Then what would be the use of telling him, only to trouble him?”