Part 4 (1/2)

”Dead? Troth he is. An' cowld.”

”H'm”--through his compressed lips. ”Flanagan, you needn't come up. I know the door. Just hold the light for me here. There, that'll do. Thank you.” He whispered the last words from the top of the second flight.

”Are ye there, docther?” Flanagan anxious to the last, and trying to peer up at him with the lamplight in his eyes.

”Yes. That'll do. Thank you!” in the same whisper. Before he could tap at the door, then darkening in the receding light, it opened suddenly, and a big Irishwoman bounced out, and then whisked in again, calling to some one in an inner room, ”Here he is, Mrs.

Mill'r”; and then bounced out again, with a, ”Walk royt in, if _you_ plaze; here's the choild”; and whisked in again, with a ”Sure an'

Jehms was quick”; never once looking at him, and utterly unconscious of the presence of her landlord. He had hardly stepped into the room and taken off his hat, when Mrs. Miller came from the inner chamber with a lamp in her hand. How she started! With her pale face grown suddenly paler, and her hand on her bosom, she could only exclaim, ”Why, it's Dr. Renton!” and stand, still and dumb, gazing with a frightened look at his face, whiter than her own.

Whereupon Mrs. Flanagan came bolting out again, with wild eyes and a sort of stupefied horror in her good, coa.r.s.e, Irish features; and then, with some uncouth e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, ran back, and was heard to tumble over something within, and tumble something else over in her fall, and gather herself up with a subdued howl, and subside.

”Mrs. Miller,” began Dr. Renton, in a low, husky voice, glancing at her frightened face, ”I hope you'll be composed. I spoke to you very harshly and rudely to-night; but I really was not myself--I was in anger--and I ask your pardon. Please to overlook it all, and--but I will speak of this presently; now--I am a physician; will you let me look now at your sick child?”

He spoke hurriedly, but with evident sincerity. For a moment her lips faltered; then a slow flush came up, with a quick change of expression on her thin, worn face, and, reddening to painful scarlet, died away in a deeper pallor.

”Dr. Renton,” she said, hastily, ”I have no ill-feeling for you, sir, and I know you were hurt and vexed; and I know you have tried to make it up to me again, sir, secretly. I know who it was, now; but I can't take it, sir. You must take it back. You know it was you sent it, sir?”

”Mrs. Miller,” he replied, puzzled beyond measure, ”I don't understand you. What do you mean?”

”Don't deny it, sir. Please not to,” she said imploringly, the tears starting to her eyes. ”I am very grateful,--indeed I am. But I can't accept it. Do take it again.”

”Mrs. Miller,” he replied, in a hasty voice, ”what do you mean? I have sent you nothing,--nothing at all. I have, therefore, nothing to receive again.”

She looked at him fixedly, evidently impressed by the fervor of his denial.

”You sent me nothing to-night, sir?” she asked, doubtfully.

”Nothing at any time, nothing,” he answered, firmly.

It would have been folly to have disbelieved the truthful look of his wondering face, and she turned away in amazement and confusion.

There was a long pause.

”I hope, Mrs. Miller, you will not refuse any a.s.sistance I can render to your child,” he said, at length.

She started, and replied, tremblingly and confusedly, ”No, sir; we shall be grateful to you, if you can save her”; and went quickly, with a strange abstraction on her white face, into the inner room.

He followed her at once, and, hardly glancing at Mrs. Flanagan, who sat there in stupefaction, with her ap.r.o.n over her head and face, he laid his hat on a table, went to the bedside of the little girl, and felt her head and pulse. He soon satisfied himself that the little sufferer was in no danger, under proper remedies, and now dashed down a prescription on a leaf from his pocket-book.

Mrs. Flanagan, who had come out from the retirement of her ap.r.o.n, to stare stupidly at him during the examination, suddenly bobbed up on her legs, with enlightened alacrity, when he asked if there was any one that could go out to the apothecary's, and said, ”Sure I wull!” He had a little trouble to make her understand that the prescription, which she took by the corner, holding it away from her, as if it were going to explode presently, and staring at it upside down, was to be left--”_left_, mind you, Mrs. Flanagan--with the apothecary--Mr. Flint--at the nearest corner--and he will give you some things, which you are to bring here.” But she had shuffled off at last with a confident, ”Yis, sur--aw, I knoo,” her head nodding satisfied a.s.sent, and her big thumb covering the note on the margin, ”Charge to Dr. C. Renton, Bowdoin Street,” (which, _I_ know, could not keep it from the eyes of the angels!) and he sat down to await her return.

”Mrs. Miller,” he said, kindly, ”don't be alarmed about your child.

She is doing well; and, after you have given her the medicine Mrs.

Flanagan will bring, you'll find her much better, to-morrow. She must be kept cool and quiet, you know, and she'll be all right soon.”

”O Dr. Renton, I am very grateful,” was the tremulous reply; ”and we will follow all directions, sir. It is hard to keep her quiet, sir; we keep as still as we can, and the other children are very still; but the street is very noisy all the daytime and evening, sir, and--”

”I know it, Mrs. Miller. And I'm afraid those people down stairs disturb you somewhat.”

”They make some stir in the evening, sir; and it's rather loud in the street sometimes, at night. The folks on the lower floors are troubled a good deal, they say.”

Well they may be. Listen to the bawling outside, now, cold as it is. Hark! A hoa.r.s.e group on the opposite sidewalk beginning a song,--”Ro-o-l on, sil-ver mo-o-n--” The silver moon ceases to roll in a sudden explosion of yells and laughter, sending up broken fragments of curses, ribald jeers, whoopings, and cat-calls, high into the night air. ”Ga-l-a-ng! Hi-hi! What ye-e-h _'bout!_”