The White Virgin Part 55

"Yes, Doctor," cried Jessop eagerly, "and--"

"Stand aside, please," said the old man testily. "I want to talk to this gentleman. Are you Mr Wrigley?"

"I am, and I am very grateful to you for coming, sir. I am very anxious about our man."

"Where is he?"

"This way, please."

The Doctor followed into a bedroom where the man lay, hollow of cheek and half delirious, while one of the miners' wives was playing the part of nurse.

"Mr Jessop Reed, I can dispense with your company, sir. I want to be alone. You can go too, my good woman, and you, Mr What's your name?

Robson. No, you stay, Mr Wrigley. I may want to ask some questions."

Jessop went out scowling.

"A brute!" muttered the Doctor. "Knows his brother is, perhaps, on his deathbed, and has never sent to ask how he is."

The next minute he was examining the patient, who lay perfectly still, while a hideous wound in the shoulder, which was evidently of long standing, was bared.

"Curious kind of hurt!" said the Doctor. "Here's something within which irritates it."

"Piece of rock splinter, perhaps," suggested Wrigley.

"Very likely; but he will never get well with that in his flesh.--Don't groan, man. It's to do you good. Humph, look here. I thought it was a singular injury."

He held out a piece of green metal with some fine-looking letters upon it, and Wrigley examined them.

"Eley!" he said. "Why, it is a piece of a bra.s.s cartridge."

"That's right. The man has been shot. Hallo! That makes him wince.

Why, he is hurt here, too, in this leg. No doubt about this. The bite of some animal. Dog, I suppose. Are you sure that our friend here is not a poacher?"

"I never heard of anything of the kind," replied Wrigley.

"Humph!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Doctor, "just the sort of case I should expect to meet with where men went out after game, and then lay in hiding after a fight with the keepers."

"I can do no more now," he said, after a busy pause. "I'll come and see him to-morrow, and dress the places again. They will not kill him. I daresay the wound in the shoulder will heal now; the bite, too, for a time--may break out again, though."

Just then Wrigley's hand went to his pocket, and the Doctor frowned.

"Never mind that, sir," he said. "This was done out of charity. If all I hear is right, we are fellow-sufferers."

"You lost, then, by the mine," said Wrigley eagerly.

"Yes, sir, heavily, when some confounded scoundrel put about that report, and made me join in the panic. But the fellow who bought up the shares has been nicely trapped--and--why, hang it all, are you the Mr Wrigley?"

"At your service, sir," said the solicitor coldly, but looking rather white.

"Then, Mr Wrigley, I have the pleasure of telling you that you are a confounded scoundrel, and I'm glad you've lost by your scheme. Stop!

one word! what about Jessop Reed?"

"He is outside, sir; you can speak to him."

"Not I. The pair of you hatched the swindle, I'll be bound. Take care of this man, and he is to have no spirits or meat yet, but I'll come in and see him again."

Wrigley said no more, and the Doctor marched out with his head up, gave Jessop a short nod, and strode back to continue his watching by Clive Reed's couch; but, on entering the room, he gave a start, for his patient's eyes turned to him directly.

Dinah suppressed a cry, and the Doctor made her a sign to be silent, while he quickly sat down and took his patient's hand, which closed softly upon his fingers. Then, as the eyes still gazed in his in a dreamy way, there was a faint smile of recognition. Soon after the lids dropped softly, like those of a weary infant; and as the Doctor bent lower, there was a sigh, and the regular rise and fall of his breath.

Dinah stood back with her hands clasped, her pupils widely dilated, and a beseeching look of agony in her eyes, as the Doctor slowly rose.

Then, seeing the dread and horror painted in her face, he smiled, took her hand, and led her, trembling with hope and apprehension, out of the room.

"Dying?" she cried, in a low, piteous, wailing tone.

"Yes: we've killed the fever, and he is sleeping as peacefully as a child."

"Ah!"

One low, piteous sigh, and Dinah would have fallen to the floor had not the Doctor caught her in his arms, for she fainted dead away.

The Major, who was, in his dread, always upon the _qui vive_, joined them on the instant, and helped to bear his child to a couch.

"Overcome?" he whispered.

"With joy. Yes: our poor boy will live."

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

THE RUPTURED VEIN.

"He's my father-in-law, Wrigley, but he's an old beast," said Jessop, in a low snarling tone, as the Doctor's steps died away in the distance.

"I daresay he is," replied Wrigley; "but this is no time for pouring your domestic troubles on my head. What did you mean by telling me that this man, Sturgess, fell down a shaft?"

"That's what he told me--a brute! I've no sympathy with him whatever, but I don't, want it to be said that we neglected him, in case he dies.

We've got troubles enough."

"Rather. It's about as near utter ruin as a man can get. Stockbroker?

You're lucky if you don't turn stone-broker."

"Mind what you're talking about. You'll have that fellow Robson hear you."

"Doesn't seem to matter to me who hears me now. The game's up."

"No, no, wait till that fellow comes and makes his examination."

"Oh yes. I'll wait. Here by twelve, won't he? But I'm not going to pin my faith to his coming. To me as good an idea as ever man put upon the market has gone dead."