"Mrs. Savor! What can I say to you?"
"Oh, I don't presume but what you meant for the best, Miss Kilburn. But I
guess I shall know what to do next time. I kind of felt the whole while
that it was a resk. But it's all right now."
Annie realised, in her resentment of the poor thing's uncouth sorrow, that
she had spoken to her with the hope of getting, not giving, comfort.
"Yes, yes," she confessed. "I was to blame." The bereaved mother did not
gainsay her, and she felt that, whatever was the justice of the case, she
had met her present deserts.
She had to bear the discredit into which the seaside fell with the mothers
of all the other sick children. She tried to bring Dr. Morrell once to the
consideration of her culpability in the case of those who might have lived
if the case of Mrs. Savor's baby had not frightened their mothers from
sending them to the seaside; but he refused to grapple with the problem.
She was obliged to believe him when he said he should not have advised
sending any of the recent cases there; that the disease was changing its
character, and such a course could have done no good.
"Look here, Miss Kilburn," he said, after scanning her face sharply, "I'm
going to leave you a little tonic. I think you're rather run down."
"Well," she said passively.