Volume Ii Part 17 (2/2)
”So he may, likely enough, too. He is bent heart and soul on what I told you last night, and I 'm not surprised if he never closed his eyes thinking of it.”
”Neither did I!” said she, curtly, and left the room.
The doctor was not long in arriving, and, after a word or two with Barrington, hastened to the patient's room.
”Are we alone?” asked Stapylton, cutting short the bland speech with which Dill was making his approaches. ”Draw that curtain a bit, and take a good look at me. Are my eyes bloodshot? Are the pupils dilated? I had a bad sunstroke once; see if there be any signs of congestion about me.”
”No, I see none. A little flushed; your pulse, too, is accelerated, and the heart's action is labored--”
”Never mind the heart; if the head be well, it will take care of it.
Reach me that pocket-book; I want to acquit one debt to you before I incur another. No humbug between us;” and he pressed some notes into the other's palm as he spoke. ”Let us understand each other fully, and at once. I 'm not very ill; but I want _you_.”
”And I am at your orders.”
”Faithfully,--loyally?”
”Faithfully,--loyally!” repeated the other after him.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 454]
”You've read the papers lately,--you've seen these attacks on me?”
”Yes.”
”Well, what do they say and think here--I mean in this house--about them? How do they discuss them? Remember, I want candor and frankness; no humbug. I'll not stand humbug.”
”The women are against you.”
”Both of them?”
”Both.”
”How comes that?--on what grounds?”
”The papers accused you of cruelty; they affirmed that there was no cause for the measures of severity you adopted; and they argued--”
”Don't bore me with all that balderdash. I asked you how was it that these women a.s.sumed I was in the wrong?”
”And I was about to tell you, if you had not interrupted me.”
”That is, they believed what they read in the newspapers?”
”Yes.”
”And, of course, swallowed that fine story about the Hindoo fellow that I first cut down, and afterwards bribed to make his escape from the hospital?”
”I suspect they half believed it.”
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