A Woman's War by Warwick Deeping

James Murchison, walking along the pavement of Wilton High Street with the sharp, savage strides of a man tortured by his own thoughts, turned into Dr. Tugler's surgery as the clock struck eight, finding in this stern routine a power to steady him against despair. He slipped off his overcoat, folded it slowly and methodically over the back of a bench, and hung his hat on one of the gas brackets projecting from the wall. To John Tugler, who was seated at one of the tables, examining a girl with a red rash covering her face, there was something in the big man's slow and restrained patience that betrayed how sorrow was shadowing his assistant's home.

John Tugler pushed back his chair, and crossed the room to the corner where Murchison was bending over his open instrument bag. The droop of the shoulders, the whole pose of the powerful figure, told of the burden that lay heavy upon the father's heart.