blocked by the massive form of the German music-master,
who sat on the top stair with his face buried in his large, fat hands.
The Doctor tapped his foot on the ground impatiently. If one thing more
than another annoyed him, it was the sight of uncontrolled emotion.

'Pardon me,' he said briskly, 'but will you kindly----'

'_Gott in Himmel!_' shouted Herr Scales, springing to his feet as he
recognised the Doctor's voice. 'Tell me, Herr Doktor, haf I kilt her? Am I
a murterer of the _lieblichste_ little Fraeulein that ever walked upon----'

'Nonsense, sir!' interrupted Dr. Hurst, doing his best to keep his temper.
The sight of the tears that streamed down the good-natured face of the
music-master was enough, he told himself, to annoy any man who was not a
foreigner. 'Nobody has killed her yet; but what you are going to do, among
you, before you have done with her, I shouldn't like to say.'

'You do not understand,' wept Herr Scales, clasping his hands. 'It was
I who nearly kilt her, _dummer_ wretch that I am.'

'Well, you haven't killed her, my good sir, and she's going to get
better,' answered the Doctor, trying to deal gently with him in spite of
his irritating foreign behaviour. Then he left him and went quickly
down the stairs.

Two more voices assailed him in the hall, as he took down his coat from
the peg. Restraining his impatience as best he might, the young man
looked round to find Kit and Wilfred at his elbow. Curled up on the rug
in front of the stove lay Robin, fast asleep, with his head pillowed on a
footstool. Weariness and the shedding of many tears had left their mark
on his round, babyish face, and the elder boys looked little more than
half-awake themselves. Kit's face was tear-stained too, and he suddenly
found he could not put the question he was longing to ask. It was Wilfred
who blurted it out instead.

'Is she better?' he asked.

The Doctor had been up all night; he had gone through more anxiety than
he could have believed himself capable of feeling; he had found that his
heart had gone out unconsciously, eleven weeks ago, to the child who had
called him a beast; and he felt that all the glory his profession could
bring him was not worth so much as the saving of that one little life
upstairs. And then people came and bothered him with their senseless
questions. If she were worse, was it likely he would be leaving her now?

He was worn out with want of sleep, and it did not occur to him tha