Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/149

 At his touch the patient opened his eyes feebly, and looked up at him. But he closed them again, muttering something which the doctor failed to catch.

"I guess he's asking for Dr. Morse," said the wife, whose cheeks were pale again. "He's been asking for him all day, and I didn't know what I'd ought to do about it."

Dr. Morse, as Anson knew, was the family physician whom he had superseded. For a moment the young doctor's face looked hard and almost cruel. He had seated himself in the chair placed for him at the bedside, and was apparently absorbed in counting his patient's pulse. It was but a faint fluttering of life beneath his finger, and he felt a sinking at the heart as he tried to put his mind upon the count. He had never lost but one patient, as he often reflected with pride, and that was an aged man. Suppose James Ellery should die. Was it his fault? People must die, in spite of the doctors. It was only that this was almost his first fatal case, that it should take such hold of him. Yet, all the same, it was a sickening feeling to have a life which you were trying to hold slip from your grasp in this way.

His touch upon the wrist must have tightened, for the patient moved uneasily, and tried to draw his handaway. Dr. Bennett looked at his watch. Nearly five minutes had passed, and yet he had not counted the feeble pulse. He released the