"Then let her go to my house," said Alice. "I live close here--in Saxe-Coburg Square--just through Queen's Gate. Let us take her there at once, and--"
"My dear young lady," said Dr. B., "you scarcely know what trouble you are entailing on yourself. This poor girl is in a very bad way, I am sure, from the mere cursory examination I have been able to make. And--and, pardon me," he added, glancing at Alice's widow's-cap, "but you, surely, have seen enough trouble already for one so young."
"Will you be kind enough to superintend her being lifted into the carriage?" was all Alice said in reply. And the doctor bowed, and looked at her with a wonderfully benevolent expression out of his keen gray eyes.
Where had Barbara been during this colloquy? Where, but at the side of the prostrate figure, staunching the little stream of blood that welled slowly from the wound in the forehead, and bathing the deadly-cold brow and the limp hands with water that had been fetched from the neighbouring Serpentine. And then, at the doctor's suggestion, the park-keeper fetched a hurdle from the enclosure, and this they stretched across the seats of the carriage, and, covering it with Shawls and cloaks and wraps, lifted on to it the prostrate form of Kate Mellon, and with Alice and Barbara attendant on her, and the doctor riding close by, they drove slowly away.
Informed by the doctor that it would be dangerous to attempt to carry the patient upstairs, Mrs. Schröder had sent the footman on with instructions; and by the time they arrived at the house they found that a bed had been prepared in the library, a room on the ground floor, unused since Mr. Schröder's death. As they passed through Queen's Gate Dr. B. had cantered off, promising to return in a minute, and they had scarcely laid poor Kitty on the bed before he appeared, followed by a handsome bald-headed man, with a keen eye and a smile of singular sweetness, wham he introduced as Mr. Slade, the celebrated surgeon of St. Vitus's.
"I thought I recognised Slade's cab standing at a door in Prince's Terrace. He drives the most runaway horse in the most easily over-turned vehicle in London; but I suppose he thinks he can set his own neck when he breaks it, which he is safe to do sooner or later; so I rode round, and fortunately caught him just as he was coming out. And now I'll leave the case in his hands; it would be impossible to leave it in better." And so saying, Dr. B. bowed to the ladies, exchanged a laugh and a pinch of snuff with his brother-professional, and took his leave.
Mr. Slade then approached the bed, and made a rapid examination of the patient, the others watching him anxiously. His face revealed nothing, nor did he speak until he sent one of the servants for a small square box, which was, he said, in his carriage. While waiting for this, Alice took heart to speak to him, and ask him if the case was very serious.
"Very," was his quiet reply. "Could scarcely be worse."
"But there is hope?"
"There is always hope," said the old man, his lace lighting up with his sweet grave smile; "but this is a very bad case. The poor girl's ribs are severely fractured, and there is concussion here," pointing to the head, "which causes her insensibility. The box--thank you. Now, ladies, will you kindly leave the room, and I will join you presently."