"She had a long fainting fit, fell heavily, and has, I fear, slight concussion of the brain."
"What cause, what reason was there?"
"Her maid will tell you. I will send her."
"But I must see my wife first!"
"You cannot. I shall stay here until I judge it safe to leave her. I have sent for a competent nurse, and expect her every moment."
"Surely, doctor—there is no fear—of death."
"I should not like another lapse of consciousness."
Robert did not speak. He steadied himself by grasping the baluster, and the doctor left him, and sent out Ducie.
"How did this happen, Ducie?" he asked.
Then Ducie told him everything. She described the way her mistress was sitting, and the entrance of Mrs. Campbell. She remembered the words, and the tones in which the conversation had taken place, and the inability of her mistress to answer the last two questions—the snatching of the book from the table, and the flinging of it to the end of the room, and after an emphatic pause she added: "The book was the Bible, sir."