76
FLAMING
YOUTH
“Tf you try to thank me I'll kill you!” retorted Osterhout, snarling and livid, suddenly losing control of himself in his jealous anguish of soul. The other stared in his face, amazed
but unalarmed
by the outbreak. “Ah! he breathed. “So that’s the way it is with you. Well—God help you! Imsorry. ButI know now you'll do your best for her. That’s all I care about.” He turned toward the door of the room. For the moment Osterhout started forward to intercept him, then drew back with a face in which shone the bitterness of yielding to a superior right. When Rathbone returned, both men had recovered their self-command. “Get your things together; send for a maid to pack hers; settle your bill, and get the easiest riding car you can find to go to Philadelphia,” were the physician’s brief directions. “Where are you going to take her?” “To a hospital.” “When can I see her?” “That is for her to say.”
“Then you don’t think she’s going to—that there is any immediate danger?” said the lover hopefully.
“T think she’ll pull through this time, though there is still danger.” “T’m glad you’re with her,” said Rathbone simply, and went,
Quite as much time was devoted by Dr. Osterhout in the days immediately following to covering the devious trail of his patient as to treating her medically. After a consultation with Mrs. Barham, in which each solemnly
pretended that the other entertained no suspicion of Mona’s slip, he wrote a heedfully worded letter of misinformation and assurance to Ralph Fentriss, explaining
