His spirit was away, away.
Where?
In Hades, most probably, judging from his antecedents.
“Will he die in this stupor, or come out of it, do you think, sir?” inquired the rector of the doctor one morning as the two men stood by the bedside of the patient.
Dr. Hobbs never “shook his head;” doctors never do such stupidly disheartening things over a case, however serious—story writers to the contrary notwithstanding.
This physician also had the courage to confess that he was not omniscient, for he answered:
“I do not know.”
“But if he should come out of this stupor, will he be likely to live?” inquired the rector.
“I do not know,” again replied the doctor. “I shall be better able to judge when he recovers consciousness, if he should ever recover it.”
And the physician wrote his prescriptions and instructions for the treatment of the ill man and retired.