“We’ll pass that up just now,” returned the other brusquely, and led him on.  Madison was almost helpless:  he murmured in a husky, uncertain voice, and suffered himself to be put to bed.  There, the doctor “worked” with him; cold “applications” were ordered; Laura was summoned from the other sick-bed; Hedrick sent flying with prescriptions, then to telephone for a nurse.  The two women attempted questions at intervals, but Sloane replied with orders, and kept them busy.

“Do you—­think I’m a—–­a pretty sick man, Sloane?” asked Madison after a long silence, speaking with difficulty.

“Oh, you’re sick, all right,” the doctor conceded.

“I—­I want to speak to Jennie.”

His wife rushed to the bed, and knelt beside it.

“Don’t you go to confessing your sins,” said Doctor Sloane crossly.  “You’re coming out of the woods all right, and you’ll be sorry if you tell her too, much.  I’ll begin a little flirtation with you, Miss Laura, if you please.”  And he motioned to her to follow him into the hall.

“Your father is pretty sick,” he told her, “and he may be sicker before we get him into shape again.  But you needn’t be worried right now; I think he’s not in immediate danger.”  He turned at the sound of Mrs. Madison’s step, behind him, and repeated to her what he had just said to Laura.  “I hope your husband didn’t give himself away enough to be punished when we get him on his feet again,” he concluded cheerfully.

She shook her head, tried to smile through tears, and, crossing the hall, entered Cora’s room.  She came back after a moment, and, rejoining the other two at her husband’s bedside, found the sick man in a stertorous sleep.  Presently the nurse arrived, and upon the physician’s pointed intimation that there were “too many people around,” Laura went to Cora’s room.  She halted on the threshold in surprise.  Cora was dressing.

“Mamma says the doctor says he’s all right,” said Cora lightly, “and I’m feeling so much better myself I thought I’d put on something loose and go downstairs.  I think there’s more air down there.”

“Papa isn’t all right, dear,” said Laura, staring perplexedly at Cora’s idea of “something loose,” an equipment inclusive of something particularly close.  “The doctor says he is very sick.”

“I don’t believe it,” returned Cora promptly.  “Old Sloane never did know anything.  Besides, mamma told me he said papa isn’t in any danger.”

“No `immediate’ danger,” corrected Laura.  “And besides, Doctor Sloane said you were to stay in bed until to-morrow.”

“I can’t help that.”  Cora went on with her lacing impatiently.  “I’m not going to lie and stifle in this heat when I feel perfectly well again—­not for an old idiot like Sloane!  He didn’t even have sense enough to give me any medicine.”  She laughed.  “Lucky thing he didn’t:  I’d have thrown it out of the window.  Kick that slipper to me, will you, dear?”