“It is my fault, then, in not having given her a sleeping draught; but I felt so sure she would sleep naturally,” he said, in a worried tone. Bending over the bed, he proceeded to make a more careful investigation of Nell’s injuries than had been possible on the previous night.
When he had finished his examination he sat down by the bed, and began to talk to Nell with the uncompromising straightforwardness which was winning him favour among these people of the far west, whose lives are too full of toil and endeavour for them to tolerate a medical opinion which says one thing and means another.
“You are not so well this morning as I expected to find you; but that is largely your own fault, because, when you were helped to bed last night, instead of going to sleep, as you ought to have done, you commenced to worry about yourself, and kept it up until sleep became impossible to you.”
A faint smile curved Nell’s lips. She had been worrying, it was true, only the doctor was very much mistaken as to the cause of the worry.
“The reason you find it difficult, perhaps impossible, to talk,” continued the doctor, “is because the dislocation of the jaw caused much swelling and soreness of all the muscles of your throat; but if you are able to get some hours of restful sleep this soreness will largely vanish, and you will be able to talk comfortably.”
Again Nell smiled; but there was something in her eyes which made the doctor ask anxiously—
“You have no other injuries, of which you have not spoken?”
Nell’s eyes and hand said no for her with so much emphasis that the doctor’s fears on that score were completely set at rest. But as the look of trouble still remained in her eyes, he invented an errand for Mrs. Nichols which took her for a brief space from the room, and then he asked, in a low tone—
“If you are not worrying about your own condition, is it some other trouble that you have?”
Nell’s eyes drooped uneasily. She could not tell him, she could not tell anyone, how afraid she was that Doss Umpey would be found and arrested for being concerned with the two Brunsens in the attempt to rob the big shed.