CHAPTER XI.
THE DOCTOR’S VISIT.
WHEN Vivian came to himself he was lying flat on his back on his bed upstairs, and some one was bathing his head with cold water, while Mary stood by the side of the bed holding a basin.
‘He is better now, mum,’ he heard her say; ‘he has opened his eyes, and the colour is coming back into his face.’
‘Poor little fellow!’ It was Aunt Dora who spoke. ‘I would not have thought that he was so easily upset. He must have been feeling ill all morning. I told him to stay in bed for his cold; but I suppose every one forgot to see after him, and he just got up like the others.’
‘I don’t think it was exactly that, mum,’ answered Mary; ‘for he ate a good breakfast, and seemed all right till some one began to talk about Monarch; and I think it was the shock when he heard that the poor brute had been poisoned that did it.’
At her words the whole hideous story, and the share he had unwittingly taken in it, flashed across Vivian’s mind. ‘Oh Aunt Dora!’ he cried, ‘I did not do it. I did not know that it would hurt him.’
Had his aunt been able to understand his words he would have confessed everything there and then, he felt so weak and miserable and broken-down; but she only looked at Mary in perplexity.
‘Do what?’ she asked in a puzzled way. ‘What is he thinking of, I wonder?’
‘About killing Monarch, I should say, mum,’ said Mary. ‘Mrs Mason said to me that he had been feeding the dog with some scraps while you were all at church; but of course that had nothing to do with the nasty bits of cake that poisoned him.—They must have been given to him at night, after it was dark, Master Vivian, when every one was safe in the house, and there was no one to see what was going on.’