Part 50 (1/2)

They got David to bed again, anti Sampson told Mrs. Dodd there was no danger now from the malady, but only from the remedies.

And in fact David fell into a state of weakness and exhaustion, and kept muttering unintelligibly.

Dr. Short called in the morning, and was invited to consult with Dr.

Sampson. He declined. ”Dr. Sampson is a notorious quack: no physician of any eminence will meet him in consultation.”

”I regret that resolution,” said Mrs. Dodd quietly, ”as it will deprive me of the advantage of your skill.”

Dr. Short bowed stifly. ”I shall be at your service, madam, when that empiric has given the patient up.” And he drove away.

Osmond, finding Sampson installed, took the politic line; he contrived to glide by fine gradations into the empiric's opinions, without recanting his own, which were diametrically opposed.

Sampson, before he shot back to town, asked him to provide a good reliable nurse.

He sent a young woman of iron. She received Sampson's instructions, and a.s.sumed the command of the sick-room, and was jealous of Mrs. Dodd and Julia, looked on them as mere rival nurses, amateurs, who, if not snubbed, might ruin the professionals. She seemed to have forgotten in the hospitals all about the family affections and their power of turning invalids themselves into nurses.

The second night she got the patient all to herself for four hours, from eleven till two.

The ladies having consented to this arrangement its order to recruit themselves for the work they were not so mad as to intrust wholly to a hireling, nurse's feathers smoothed themselves perceptibly.

At twelve the patient was muttering and murmuring incessantly about wrecks, and money, and things: of which vain babble nurse showed her professional contempt by nodding.

At 12.30 she slept

At 1.20 she snored very loud, and woke instantly at the sound.

She took the thief out of the candle, and went like a good sentinel to look at her charge.

He was not there.

She rubbed her eyes, and held the candle over the place where he ought to be--where, in fact, he must be; for he was far too weak to move.

She tore the bedclothes down: she beat and patted the clothes with her left hand, and the candle began to shake violently in her right.

The bed was empty.

Mrs. Dodd was half asleep when a hurried tap came to her door: she started up in a moment and great dread fell on her; was David sinking?

”Ma'am! Ma'am! Is he here?”

”He! Who?” cried Mrs. Dodd, bewildered.

”Why, _him!_ He can't be far off”

In a moment Mrs. Dodd had opened the door, and her tongue and the nurse's seemed to dash together, so fast came the agitated words from each in turn; and crying, ”Call my son! Alarm the house!” Mrs. Dodd darted into the sickroom. She was out again in a moment, and up in the attics rousing the maids, while the nurse thundered at Edward's door and Julia's, and rang every bell she could get at. The inmates were soon alarmed, and flinging on their clothes: meantime Mrs. Dodd and the nurse scoured the house and searched every nook in it down to the very cellar: they found no David.

But they found something.

The street door ajar.