He hesitated. "Perhaps. Still--I give no promise. I'll think it over. When I have more time, you'll explain?"
However she accomplished it, Madam Crewe had her way. Katherine did not see Dr. Ballard again before he left for Boston. He left a brief note explaining that Mr. Ronald refused to release him, even after Dr. Webster arrived with his brace of nurses.
Katherine read the letter with a bitter smile. Technically, she had nothing to complain of. She had definitely said she would never marry him. He had taken her at her word--and yet, his easy acquiescence hurt her cruelly. It did not _explain_ anything, that Mr. Ronald himself confessed his dependence on Dr. Ballard.
The saving of his wife and baby (a miracle, Dr. Webster called it) made Frank Ronald feel that, whoever came or went, "Ballard" and Martha Slawson could not be spared from Claire's bedside, until the danger was over, recovery absolutely certain.
It was all perfectly plausible, and yet--
Then came an urgent recall to Boston, which "the best skill in New England" felt obliged to respond to in person.
"If you didn't have a family, Mrs. Slawson," he said to Martha, the last evening, as they sat in Claire's sitting-room, gratifying Frank Ronald's whim that they remain within call,--"If you didn't have a family I'd urge you to take up nursing. You have an excellent knack for it. I could make a capital nurse of you."
Martha nodded appreciatively. "Thank you, sir. But there's so many things I'm, as you might say, billed to be made over into first, I guess I'll have to cut out the trained nurse. Besides, I might fall down on a case I was a stranger to. It's dead easy do for anybody you love, but to go an' pick'm up off'n the roadside----! Well, that's a differnt proposition. The dirt an' the smell o' some o' them! You wouldn't believe it!"
"Not on your life! That is,--not so you'd notice it."
"Yet you stood by him like a soldier, when Driggs and I took his hand off, last night. How's that?"
Martha pondered a moment. "Well, you see, sir, to tell the truth, I feel kind o' responsible for Buller. 'Twas me made'm mad in the first place, an' then, when he wanted to get back at me, 'twas our trap give'm the nip. Poor fella! You couldn't help be sorry for'm, he'll miss that strong right hand o' his so, which it used to be a reg'lar pretidigiagitator with the licka---- 'Now you see it an' now you don't effec'.'"