“Maud, this is Sir James Sanderson,” she said. “He wants to talk to you. Good-bye, Sir James. I shall see you, of course, to-morrow morning.”
She left the room, and Maud was alone with the doctor. She had no idea what he wanted to talk to her about, and waited, wondering why Catherine had left them.
But he instantly approached the subject.
“Lady Maud,” he said, “I want to hear about Caithness and the typhoid and Mr. Cochrane.”
Maud was taking off her gloves, but stopped in sheer surprise. There was nothing that she expected less than this.
“What for?” she said.
“For your brother,” said he.
He asked but few questions in her story, for it was a plain and simple narrative. She described just what had passed in connection with Duncan’s wife; she described all that she had seen with regard to Sandie Mackenzie; she mentioned the curious and complete cessation of the epidemic itself.
“And I think I believe exactly what Mr. Cochrane told me,” she said. “Indeed, it seems the simplest explanation to suppose that it was the direct power of God, in whose presence neither sickness, nor disease, nor pain can exist.”
“You say you think so only,” said he. “You are not sure?”