He did not for a moment disguise to himself the seriousness of the wound, but he said nothing until the doctor had been to see it. The latter arrived and after his examination, he turned and shook his head.
“Are you going to bleed him?” asked the priest.
“What would be the use?” asked the doctor. “If it had been done at once after the wound was given, it might perhaps have helped to save him, but it would be dangerous now to disturb the blood in any way.”
“Is there any chance for him?” asked the priest, who was thinking that the less there was for the doctor to do, the more there would be for the priest.
“If his wound runs the ordinary course,” said the doctor, lowering his voice, “he will probably not last out the day.”
“You give him up then?”
“A doctor never gives up a patient, or at least if he does so, he still trusts to the possibility of nature mercifully interfering on the patient’s behalf; a clot may form and stop the hemorrhage; a cough may disturb the clot, and the patient bleed to death.”
“You think then that it is my duty to prepare the poor young man for death,” asked the curate.
“I think,” answered the doctor, shrugging his shoulders, “you would do better to leave him alone; in the first place because he is, at present, in a drowsy condition and cannot hear what you say; later on, because he will be delirious, and unable to understand you.” But the doctor was mistaken; the wounded man, drowsy as he was, overheard this conversation, more reassuring as regards the salvation of his soul than the recovery of his body. How many things people say in the presence of sick persons, believing that they cannot hear, while all the while, they are