CHAPTER XLVI.
DR. BAYLESS
All the long night that followed Leslie’s appearance among the Francoises, Mamma was alert and watchful.
Often she crept to the door of the inner room, where Leslie slumbered heavily. Often she glanced, with a grin of satisfaction, toward the couch where Franz lay breathing regularly, and scarcely stirring the whole night through. Often she turned her face, with varying expressions, toward the corner where Papa slumbered uneasily, muttering vaguely from time to time. But never once did her eyes close. All the night she watched and listened, pondered and planned.
As morning dawned, the stillness of the inner room was pierced by a burst of shrill laughter, followed by words swiftly uttered but indistinct. Mamma hastened at once to the bedside of her new charge.
Leslie had broken her heavy slumber, but the fire of fever burned in her cheeks, the light of insanity blazed from her eyes; and for many days it mattered little to her that she was a fugitive from home, a woman under suspicion, and helpless in the hands of her enemies. Nature, indulging in a kindly freak, had taken her back to her girlhood’s days, before her first trouble came. She was Leslie Uliman again; watched over by loving parents, care-free and happy.
It was a crushing blow to Mamma’s hopes and ambitions, and she faced a difficult problem, there by that couch in the grey of morning. Leslie was very ill. This she saw at a glance, and then came the thought: What if she were to die, and just at a time when so much depended upon her? It roused Mamma to instant action. Leslie must not die—not yet.
Papa and Franz were at once awakened, and the situation made known to them. Whereupon Papa fell into a state of helpless, hopeless dejection, and Franz flew into a fury.
“It’s all up with us now,” moaned Papa. “Luck’s turned aginst us.”
“It’s up, sure enough, with your fine plans,” sneered Franz. “I’m goin’ ter take myself out of yer muddle, while my way’s clear.”
“If I wasn’t dealin’ with a pair of fools,” snapped Mamma, “I’d come out all right. The gal ain’t dead yet, is she?”
And then, while Leslie laughed and chattered, alone in the inner room, the three resolved themselves into a council, wrangled and disputed, and at last compromised and settled upon a plan—Papa yielding sullenly, Franz protesting to the last and making sundry reservations, and Mamma carrying the day.
Leslie must have a physician; it would never do to trust her fever to unskilled hands; she must have a physician, and a good one. So said Mamma.
“It ain’t so risky as you might think,” she argued. “A good doctor’s what we want—one whose time’s valuable. Then he won’t be running here when he ain’t wanted. He’ll come an’ see the gal, an’ then he’ll be satisfied to take my reports and send her the medicine. Oh, I know these city doctors. They come every day if you’ve got a marble door-step, but they won’t be any too anxious about poor folks. A doctor can’t make nothin’ out of the kind of talk she is at now, and by the time she gits her senses, we’ll hit on somethin’ new.”
This plan was opposed stoutly by Franz, feebly by Papa; but the old woman carried the point at last.
“I know who we want,” said Mamma confidently. “It’s Doctor Bayless. He’s a good doctor, an’ he don’t live any too near.”
At the mention of Doctor Bayless, Papa’s countenance took on an expression of relief, which was noted by Franz, who turned away, saying:
“Wal, git your doctor, then, an’ the quicker the better. But mind this: I don’t appear till I’m sure it’s safe. Ye kin git yer doctor, but when he’s here, I’ll happen ter be out.”
It was Mamma who summoned Doctor Bayless, and he came once, twice, and again.
His patient passed, under his care, from delirium to stupor, from fever to coolness and calm, and then to returning consciousness. As he turned from her bedside, at the termination of his third visit, he said:
“I think she will get on, now. Keep her quiet, avoid excitement, and if she does not improve steadily, let me know.”
He had verified Mamma’s good opinion of him by manifesting not the slightest concern in the personality of his patient. If he were, for the moment, interested in Leslie, it was as a fever patient, not as a woman strangely superior to her surroundings. And on this occasion he dropped his interest in her case at the very door of the sick-room.
At the corner of the dingy street, a voice close behind him arrested his footsteps: “Doctor Bayless.”
The man of medicine turned quickly to face the speaker.
“This is Doctor Bayless?” the owner of the intrusive voice queried.
Doctor Bayless bowed stiffly.
“Bayless, formerly of the R—— street Insane Asylum?” persisted the questioner.
The doctor reddened and a startled look crossed his face, but he said, after a moment’s silence: “The same.”
“I want a few words with you, sir.”
“Excuse me;”—the doctor was growing haughty;—“my time is not my own.”
“Neither is mine, sir. I am a public benefactor, same as yourself.”
“Ah, a physician?”
“Oh, not at all; a detective.”
“A detective!” Doctor Bayless did not look reassured. He glanced at the detective, and then up and down the street, his uneasiness evident.
“I am a detective; yes, sir,” said the stranger cheerily, “and you are in a position to do me a favor without in any way discommoding yourself. Don’t be alarmed, sir; its nothing that affects you or touches upon that asylum business. You are safe with me, my word for it, and here’s my card. Now, sir, just take my arm and come this way.”
Doctor Bayless glanced down at the card, and then up at the speaker; and a look of relief crossed his face as he accepted the proffered arm, and walked slowly along at the side of his new acquaintance.