“There does seem so to me,” I replied.  “It may be only my imagination, but I think the eyelids are inflamed.”

I held the baby for him, while he made an examination.  He admitted that there seemed to be ground for uneasiness.  His professional dignity was now gone, and he was only too glad to be human.

“Dr. Perrin,” I said, “there is only one thing we can do—­to get some nitrate of silver at the earliest possible moment.  Fortunately, the launch is here.”

“I will have it start at once,” he said.  “It will have to go to Key West.”

“And how long will that take?”

“It depends upon the sea.  In good weather it takes us eight hours to go and return.”  I could not repress a shudder.  The child might be blind in eight hours!

But there was no time to be wasted in foreboding.  “About Dr. Overton,” I said.  “Don’t you think he had better come?” But I ventured to add the hint that Mr. van Tuiver would hardly wish expense to be considered in such an emergency; and in the end, I persuaded the doctor not merely to telegraph for the great surgeon, but to ask a hospital in Atlanta to send the nearest eye-specialist by the first train.

We called back Mrs. Tuis, and I apologized abjectly for my presumption, and Dr. Perrin announced that he thought he ought to see Dr. Overton, and another doctor as well.  I saw fear leap into Aunt Varina’s eyes.  “Oh, what is it?” she cried.  “What is the matter with our babe?”

I helped the doctor to answer polite nothings to all her questions.  “Oh, the poor, dear lady!” I thought to myself.  The poor, dear lady!  What a tearing away of veils and sentimental bandages was written in her book of fate for that night!

15.  I find myself lingering over these preliminaries, dreading the plunge into the rest of my story.  We spent our time hovering over the child’s crib, and in two or three hours the little eyelids had become so inflamed that there could no longer be any doubt what was happening.  We applied alternate hot and cold cloths; we washed the eyes in a solution of boric acid, and later, in our desperation, with bluestone.  But we were dealing with the virulent gonococcus, and we neither expected nor obtained much result from these measures.  In a couple of hours more the eyes were beginning to exude pus, and the poor infant was wailing in torment.

“Oh, what can it be?  Tell me what is the matter?” cried Mrs. Tuis.  She sought to catch the child in her arms, and when I quickly prevented her, she turned upon me in anger.  “What do you mean?”

“The child must be quiet,” I said.

“But I wish to comfort it!” And when I still insisted, she burst out wildly:  “What right have you?”

“Mrs. Tuis,” I said, gently, “it is possible the infant may have a very serious infection.  If so, you would be apt to catch it.”

She answered with a hysterical cry:  “My precious innocent!  Do you think that I would be afraid of anything it could have?”