The Argosy, Volume XLIV — page 277: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BY THE ENEMY’S WILL. fell was of a different. kind from her previous insensibility; it was evident she was sleeping now. Her breath came and went more easily, with the calmness and regularity coincident with natural slumber. | With a quietness of footfall bred of the sick chamber, the doctor walked from the room; then beckoned me to follow him. I did so on tiptoe and closed the door after me. We stood in what was my own sitting- room. Bearing in mind the failure of my attempted explanation, I waited for my enemy—so only I could regard him —to speak first. / “ She is sleeping now,” he said. “‘T'he effect of that drug I have given her will be that she will probably sleep during the whole night.” cé Ves.” “The girl has undergone some ex- traordinary, terrible excitement. I don’t know what it is; I don’t expect you to tell me.” “Tf I knew, doctor 7 I began impulsively, but words failed me once again. He had his hand up in that authoritative way of his; it checked my utterance. “Don’t talk. [ have told you not to; I don’t want to hear anything more from you.” “You are hard! Hard as 7 He wholly ignored my interruption —which was partly in the nature of a plea—and, carrying on his own train of thought, continued: “What relationship exists between vou and that girl is no business of mine.” “J never saw her before to-night!” Had I addressed mvself to the wall, the result would have been the same— for all the attention my remark ex- cited. “It is right that you should know that she has been nearer death this night than she has probably ever been in her life.” “TY feared she must be very Il—I told you so when ” “ Had she died, it is not for me to say what would have happened to you.” “To me?” “ At one time—during the first half hour of my visit here—I thought she GA 2t3 was dying; that when the half-hour had passed she would be dead.” “ Horrible! ” “Tt is lucky for her—perhaps lucky for you—that her constitution is a nat- urally strong and vigorous one, or she would never have come out of that death-like swoon. It was her youth that fought for her.” “There is no danger now?” I asked that question with a faint sigh of relief; it as plain to foresce the reply. “None. That has passed. Recovery will be slow, but, given careful treat- ment, there is no reason why it should not be sure.” “And she will wake up?” “ Perhaps in a dozen hours’ time—I have given her a strong narcotic. It 1s rest, complete rest—not so much phys- ical as mental—that she requires now.” “ And then?” “She will be as weak as a rat—her physical forces at the mercy of her nervous exhaustion.” “Tor which I am in no way respon- sible.” “As you choose to look at it! Any- way, the excitement through which she has passed is the proximate cause.” No doubt the doctor thought I ought to have expressed some sort of sympathy. But I remembered that she was, after all, a female burglar. The excitement through which she had passed was of her own creation. His next question was one I was un- able to answer. “What do you propose to do? ” What indeed! What could I possibly do? Noting mv silence, he added: “You must keep her here!” The complications so plainly likely to arise from such a course made me prompt enough in my answer when he sald that. “Keep her here! How can I? Im- possible!” That hard smile came to his lips again; he said gravely: “Speaking as a medical man only ” —he emphasized the lmitation— I should advise you, I may say warn you, not to have her moved anyway for the next two or three days. If you like, I will send you in a nurse.” (GO) MICLOO© Colin