Read Online The Good Doctor by Paul Butler - Free Book Online

makes her hesitate. She even shrinks into herself as though he has trumped her.
    â€œWhat kind of man are you?” she asks with a surprising kind of warmth. Gone is the scorn of yesterday, the disparagement under the Cathedral dome. Fear lurks in her now, a searching kind of fear that hones close upon his features for a clue as to his intent. Even in the midst of his panic he feels relieved by this change. Fear possesses something grander than contempt. Fear at least needs to know its adversary; it is laced with a kind of respect. And it allows for options, too. It gives a man time to think.
    â€œThe kind of man who acts upon his desires.” The statement comes out almost casually, and with a shrug.
    â€œWhat could you desire from me?” she hisses, giving a furtive glance toward a woman and young child dawdling by a tree. The child is in a white frock and the woman wears the bonnet, the long navy skirts, and high tunic of the Salvation Army.
    â€œMercy,” he says. The word is little more than a cough, but it marries a lunging appeal for understanding with the plain, simple truth. It’s received by Nurse Mills with a kind of shocked recognition. “You said it yourself, Nurse Mills. You came to nursing to help those who have been brought low.”
    She cringes now, head wanting to shake the words away, but unable, frozen.
    â€œYou’ll never find someone more in need than me. You must know that. How desperate does a man have to be, Nurse Mills, how desperate?”
    She finds the mobility in her neck to move her head from side to side, but it’s an uneasy, stalling action, and one hand is raised against him in a calming gesture.
    â€œI’m reduced to following like a spy, reduced to forgery. What brings a man so low but a thirst that must be quenched?”
    â€œYou must learn to control those feelings.”
    â€œI can’t. I’m sure your Dr. Grenfell can. I’m sure he doesn’t need of anything. I can tell.”
    â€œDon’t bring him into it!” she commands, fingering the weave of her bag, pulling it close again.
    â€œI do have needs, the most profound needs known to man and God.”
    â€œThat is not my responsibility,” she says, avoiding his eyes, staring down at the concrete by her feet. “You can see people about it. Go to church.”
    â€œI’m seeing the only person who can help. I’m seeing you.”
    â€œI’m not the one who can help you.”
    â€œAre you not your brother’s keeper?”
    She looks up suddenly, meeting his gaze now; her eyes are rimmed with red.
    In truth, scripture has never been the young doctor’s strong subject, and he can’t even place the exact source of the quote he has just paraphrased. Something about it just seemed right. The white-frocked minister who used to come to his school’s chapel bellowed some such question from the pulpit while staring at the sea of bored-looking faces below. To priests, teachers, and students the content of the sermon hardly mattered; there was one simple unifying message to everything taught in classroom and chapel: watch your step . The full awareness that something more potent lurks within the phrase he has just chosen dawns only when he sees its effect upon Nurse Mills.
    â€œPlease,” she says, and from the tightness of her features he can see that tears are close. “Please let me alone, at least for now.”
    She half turns, shoulders hunched together like the wings of a rook in a storm. The look she throws him before she scuttles away is beyond hurt; her eyes seem to flash a kind of apology.
    He can’t understand what has just happened, but as he stares after her his heart tugs upwards like a helium balloon. Something has undoubtedly changed, and for the better. Despite the humiliation and the embarrassment, despite the pleas, the defeat after defeat, a dim but undeniable instinct tells him an unexpected jewel is