The Mountain Girl - 23 - Emma Payne Erskine - Web Novel

IN WHICH DOCTOR HOYLE SPEAKS HIS MIND

Doctor Hoyle sat in his office staring straight before him, not as if he were looking at David Thryng, who sat in range of his vision, but as if seeing beyond him into some other time and place. David had been speaking, but now they both were silent, and the young man wondered if his old friend had really been paying attention to his words or not.

"Well, Doctor," he said at last.

"Well, David."

"You don't seem satisfied. Is it with my condition?"

"Your condition? No, no, no! It's not your condition. Yes, yes—fine, fine. I never saw such a marvellous change in my life, never!"

David smiled over the old doctor's stammer of enthusiasm. It was as if his thoughts, fertile and vehement, and the feelings of his great, warm heart welled up within him, and, trying to burst forth all at once, tumbled over themselves, unable to secure words rapidly enough in which to give themselves utterance.

"Then why so silent and dubious?"

"Why—why—y—young man, I wasn't thinking anything about you just then." And again David laughed, while his wiry old friend jumped up and walked rapidly and restlessly about the