"I have done the best I knew," muttered Mr. Carlton over and over to
himself. "I have done toward his son precisely as I would have done
toward my own. Had I it all to decide over again I could do nothing
different."
Yet try as he would to comfort himself the hours before he could
have tidings from the operating room dragged with torturing
slowness. Bob, crouched in a chair in the corner of the room, dared
not speak to his father. Never had he seen him so unnerved. There
was no need to question the seriousness of the moment; it brooded in
the tenseness of the atmosphere, in the speed with which his heart
beat, in the drawn face of the man who never ceased his measured
tread up and down the narrow room.
And when the strain of the operation was actually over there was no
lessening of anxiety, because for days following the battle for life
had still to be waged. Would human strength hold through the combat?
That was the question that filled the weary hours of the day and the
sleepless watches of the night.
Mr. Carlton, ordinarily so bound up in business affairs that he
never could leave town, now gave not a thought to them. Instead he
took up his abode in the dormitory with Bob that he might be close
at hand, and here he eagerly checked off the successive hours that
brought nearer that man who was racing against Fate across the vast
breadth of the country.
How would they meet, these two who had been so long divided by a
gulf of years and bitterness? Would his former friend feel that the
decisions he had made were wise, or would he heap reproaches upon
him for putting in jeopardy a life over which he had no jurisdiction?
With dread Mr.
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