Part 11 (1/2)
”In which way?”
”Well, late this afternoon Miss Grover rushed into the town considerably dishevelled and in a state of breathless excitement, and told the first man she saw, which happened to be Greensplat, that Rufus Sterne was lying at the foot of the cliffs near Penwith Cove with a broken leg, and that if he wasn't rescued quickly he would be drowned.”
”And has he been rescued?”
”I don't know. But some considerable time after one of the Hall servants came hurrying here for you, saying that you were wanted at once as Miss Grover had met with an accident, and as you were not at home, of course, Mr. Chester went.”
”I don't see how the two things hang together,” Dr. Pendarvis said, with knitted brows.
”Neither do I,” replied his wife; ”but there goes the surgery bell again.”
Five minutes later Dr. Pendarvis was hurrying down the long main street in the direction of Mrs. Tuke's cottage. He found Rufus in a state of collapse, and with the broken limb so swollen that he made no attempt to set the bone.
”We will have to get the swelling down first,” he explained in his old-fas.h.i.+oned way. ”Meanwhile, we must make the patient as comfortable as possible.”
What he said to himself was, ”This is a case for Chester. These young men, with their hospital practice and their up-to-date methods, can make rings round the ordinary G.P.”
When he got back to his house he found his a.s.sistant waiting for him.
”So you have been to the Hall, I understand?” he questioned. ”Nothing serious, I hope?”
”Oh, no! an attack of nerves mainly. A few cuts and bruises, but they are scarcely more than skin deep. She's evidently had a narrow squeak though.”
”Ah! I tried to get something out of Sterne, but he's in too much pain to be very communicative.”
”What was troubling Miss Grover most when I got there,” Chester replied, ”was the fear that he had not been rescued.”
”An attachment between them already?” the elder man queried, with a twinkle in his eye.
”I don't think so,” was the reply, ”though naturally if a man saves a woman's life she becomes interested in him.”
”Unless he happens to be a doctor, eh?”
”Oh! well, doctors do not count,” Chester said, with a laugh.
”Perhaps women have no faith in our ability to save life,” Dr. Pendarvis questioned.
”Oh, yes, I think they have,” the younger man replied, slowly; ”but then you see, we do it professionally. There is no touch of romance about it, and we are not supposed to take any risks.”
”We take the fees instead,” the older man laughed.
”When we can get them. But do you know in what relations.h.i.+p Miss Grover stands to the Tregony family?”
”Not the ghost of an idea. Sir Charles is as close as an oyster on the subject, and as far as I can make out, the girl is not in the habit of talking about herself.”
”She's distinctly American,” Chester said, thoughtfully.
”And therefore piquant and interesting?”