"Esther, darling, it's only me, Roger. I won't hurt you," he whispered softly. "Listen to me, dear. I want to know what these marks are on your arm. Try to tell me. Try to tell me where you have spent these past two days."
She opened her lips and moistened them painfully; then as he thought she was going to speak he saw her eyes fix themselves upon a spot above his shoulder, while her whole face became contorted with fright. Glancing behind him he saw that the doctor had quietly come near them again and was standing, a silent, bulky figure, at the foot of the canapé. Filled with annoyance Roger motioned to him to withdraw from the girl's sight, but already it was too late. With a tremor more violent than those preceding she buried her face in the cushion, then lay completely still, so still that Roger became seriously alarmed.
"Here, will someone fetch some brandy?" he demanded abruptly, looking around. "She's fainted. There's a bottle in the cupboard in my bathroom."
The voice of Chalmers answered quickly from the door-way, "Yes, sir,
I'll get it, sir."
Anxiously Roger fell to chafing the girl's cold hands then became unpleasantly aware that Sartorius was regarding him with a faintly sardonic expression on his sallow face.
"I suppose you have realised what those marks mean," the doctor said with a slight movement of his head towards the punctured sleeve.
"Well, what do they mean?" returned Roger aggressively.
"Simply what I ought to have guessed all along—that the unfortunate woman is the victim of a drug-habit."
He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Roger to swallow his rage at what seemed to him an insulting suggestion. Drug-victim! Esther! What an absurdity! Besides, would anyone give herself injections through her sleeves? Preposterous! … He continued to slap the limp hands. Why did she show no sign of reviving? It seemed to him that her heart scarcely beat at all. The awful idea came to him that she might be dead from shock and weakness…. Why was Chalmers so long over getting the brandy? Becoming desperate with impatience he decided to go himself; perhaps the old man could not find the bottle.
"Dido," he said as his aunt approached with smelling-salts in her hand, "stay with her, don't leave her, do what you can. I'll not be gone a minute."