"I do happen to have a couple of tablets of Chinosol," he said, "but I wanted to keep them in reserve for later in the day."
He threw two yellow tablets into the basin of water.
Then he laid Louis flat on the sofa, asked him a few questions, and sounded him in various parts. And at length he slowly, but firmly, drew off Mrs. Heath's bandages, and displayed Louis' head to the light.
"Hm!" he exclaimed.
Rachel restrained herself from any sound. But the spectacle was ghastly. The one particle of comfort in the dreadful matter was that Louis could not see himself.
Thenceforward Dr. Yardley seemed to forget that he ought to have been elsewhere. Working with extraordinary deliberation, he coaxed out of Louis' flesh sundry tiny stones and many fragments of mud, straightened twisted bits of skin, and he removed other pieces entirely. He murmured, "Hm!" at intervals. He expressed a brief criticism of the performance of Mrs. Heath, as distinguished from her intentions. He also opined that the great Greene might not perhaps have succeeded much better than Mrs. Heath, even if he had not been bilious. When the dressing was finished, the gruesome terror of Louis' appearance seemed to be much increased. The heroic sufferer rose and glanced at himself in the mirror, and gave a faint whistle.
"Oh! So that's what I look like, is it? Well, what price me as a victim of the Inquisition!" he remarked.
"I should advise you not to take exercise just now, young man," said the doctor. "D'you feel pretty well?"
"Pretty well," answered Louis, and sat down.
In the lobby the doctor, once more in a hurry, said to Rachel—