examination of the patient: “and a very bad case too I fear. It is of course too early to speak positively as yet: but so far as I see at present, I should say it is extremely improbable that he will ever regain consciousness. Perfect quietude is all-essential to him. His life depends on it. He must have had intense irritation of the brain, and some shock must have supervened to bring him to the state in which I find him. What is that paper clutched so tightly in his hand?” he added. “It may explain something.” And then, with a doctor’s skill, he succeeded in disengaging from his grasp the fatal letter, and read it.
“There is the explanation, at least in part.”
Each of the others read the letter so far as was needful, but, like gentlemen, no further. And Cosin understood it all better than the others could.
Full directions were given by the doctor as to treatment, and his last words were, “You must never leave him for a minute night nor day;
and if he wake—if he wake—let nothing on any account excite him.”
No doubt the doctor was right in theory, but medical directions are sometimes more easy to give than to carry out.
The doctor then drove away with Major Kelly, having first ascertained that Alice Cosin had sent for the best nurse in the village, who, wonderful to say, was a very good one.
Soon after they had left, Villemet came hurrying to the house, having obtained leave from the major. He seemed to have run all the way.
“You are the very man I want,” said Cosin.
“Do let me see him,” cried the other, all out of breath.