"Please," said a voice from the door, "if any one is ill, let it not be forgotten that I am a doctor. I offer my services," said Monsieur Châtelard.
CHAPTER III
Monsieur Châtelard, compact in self-possession, precisely attired, as if he had not been called from slumber at the worst hour of the night by a sense of mortal emergency! And yet a very different Châtelard, either from the eager traveller or the genial raconteur and table companion they had known: this was Châtelard the physician—the world-renowned specialist.
There was a weighty professional seriousness about him as he advanced into the room, fixing his spectacles with thumb and forefinger; an air of confident responsibility. He wasted not a second upon curiosity at the singular group by the bed, but sent his keen direct gaze straight to the patient.
"She's killed herself," was his first thought. "Poison," he murmured aloud, and his gesture was enough to clear the bedside for his own approach.
"No," said a voice close to him. "Not poison-shock."
M. Châtelard looked up quickly, and immediately became aware of a stranger's presence.
"Monsieur?" he exclaimed. He, too, had instantly concluded that the second man in the room must be Bethune. He was shaken into surprise. "In the name of Heaven, who are you?"
"I am her husband, whom she thought dead. I took her by surprise; she fainted."
M. Châtelard formed his lips for a noiseless whistle. Affairs, at one bound, had complicated themselves with a vengeance. Incredibly interesting! ... But the emergency claimed him. He bent over the bed, and there was silence all through the room.