"He is dead," said Miss Ottley, and her voice thrilled me to the core.
"No," said I, "he is sleeping like a babe. The crisis is over. He will live."
"Oh! my God!" she cried, and fell on her knees beside the bed shaken with a storm of sobbing.
I sneaked out of the temple and smoked my first pipe in three days. I was only half through it when I felt her at my side.
"No, please continue smoking," she said, "I like it, really. I have come to try and thank you."
"You can't," I replied; "I'm not a man to overestimate his own services, but this is the sort of thing that cannot be repaid by either gold or words."
"Oh!" she said.
"You see," I went on, "I lied. It was to save his life—for your sake. The sight of your distress touched me. I am glad that he will live, of course. Glad to have served you. But the fact remains, I am a liar."
"Dr. Pinsent!" she cried.
"Oh, I daresay I'll grow used to it," I interrupted cheerfully. "Perhaps I have only shed a superstition, after all. I confess to an unwonted feeling of freedom, too. Undoubtedly I was shackled, in a sense. Yet a convict chained for years feels naked, I am told, when he gets, suddenly, his liberty. I can easily believe it. My own experience—but enough; we leave the patient too long alone."