Part 42 (1/2)

”But please! To please me! You can get up again.”

”Oh, go to blazes!” he cried resentfully. ”What in thunder should I go to bed for, I should like to know? Have a little sense, do!” He shut his eyes.

He had never till then spoken to her so roughly.

”Very well,” she agreed, with soothing acquiescence. His outburst had not irritated her in the slightest degree.

In the kitchen, as she bent over the kettle and the fire, each object was surrounded by a sort of halo, like the moon in damp weather. She brushed her hand across her eyes, contemptuous of herself. Then she ran lightly upstairs and searched out an old linen garment and tore the seams of it apart. She crept back to the parlour and peeped in.

Louis had not moved on the sofa. His eyes were still closed. After a few seconds, he said, without stirring--

”I've not yet pa.s.sed away. I can see you.”

She responded with a little laugh, somewhat forced.

After an insupportable delay Mrs. Tams reappeared, out of breath.

Dr. Yardley had just gone out, but he was expected back very soon and would then be sent down instantly.

Mrs. Tams, quite forgetful of etiquette, followed Rachel, unasked, into the parlour.

”What?” said Louis loudly. ”Two of you! Isn't one enough?”

Mrs. Tams vanished.

”Heath took charge of the bikes,” Louis murmured, as if to the ceiling.

Over half an hour elapsed before the gate creaked.

”There he is!” Rachel exclaimed happily. After having conceived a hundred different tragic sequels to the accident, she was lifted by the mere creak of the gate into a condition of pure optimism, and she realized what a capacity she had for secretly being a ninny in an unexpected crisis. But she thought with satisfaction: ”Anyhow, I don't show it. That's one good thing!” She was now prepared to take oath that she had not for one moment been _really_ anxious about Louis. Her demeanour, as she stated the case to the doctor, was a masterpiece of tranquil unconcern.

III

Dr. Yardley said that he was in a hurry--that, in fact, he ought to have been quite elsewhere at the time. He was preoccupied, and showed no sympathy with the innocent cyclist who had escaped the fatal menace of hoofs. When Rachel offered him the torn linen, he silently disdained it, and, opening a small bag which he had brought with him, produced therefrom a roll of cotton-wool in blue paper, and a considerable quant.i.ty of sticking-plaster on a bra.s.s reel. He accepted, however, Rachel's warm water.

”You might get me some Condy's Fluid,” he said shortly.

She had none! It was a terrible lapse for a capable housewife.

Dr. Yardley raised his eyebrows: ”No Condy's Fluid in the house!”

She was condemned.

”I do happen to have a couple of tablets of Chinosol,” he said, ”but I wanted to keep them in reserve for later in the day.”

He threw two yellow tablets into the basin of water.

Then he laid Louis flat on the sofa, asked him a few questions, and sounded him in various parts. And at length he slowly, but firmly, drew off Mrs. Heath's bandages, and displayed Louis' head to the light.

”Hm!” he exclaimed.