The girl was staring at him wildly, her hands tightly clasped to her bosom.
“Pardon me!” whispered John Bruce thickly. He couldn't see her any more, just a multitude of objects whirling like a kaleidoscope before his eyes. “She—she got the candy,” said John Bruce, attempting to smile again—and pitched unconscious to the floor.
CHAPTER FOUR—A DOCTOR OF MANY DEGREES
DEAD! The girl was on her knees beside John Bruce. Dead—he did not move! It was the man who had pawned his watch-fob hardly half an hour before! What did it mean? What did those angry shouts, that scurrying of many feet out there in the lane mean? Hurriedly, her face as deadly white as the face upturned to her from the floor, she tore open the once immaculate shirt-front, that was now limp and wet and ugly with a great crimson stain, and laid bare the wound.
The sounds from without were receding, the scurrying footsteps were keeping on along the lane. A quiver ran through the form on the floor. Dead! No, he was not dead—not—not yet.
A little cry escaped from her tightly closed lips, and for an instant she covered her eyes with her hands. The wound was terrible—it frightened her. It frightened her the more because, intuitively, she knew that it was beyond any inexperienced aid that she could give. But she must act, and act quickly.
She turned and ran into the adjoining room to the telephone, but even as she reached out to lift the receiver from the hook she hesitated. Doctor Crang! A little shudder of aversion swept over her—and then resolutely, even pleading with central to hurry, she asked for the connection. It was not a matter of choice, or aversion, or any other consideration in the world save a question of minutes. The life of that man in there on the floor hung by a thread. Doctor Crang was nearby enough to respond almost instantly, and there was no one else she knew of who she could hope would reach the man in time. And—she stared frantically at the instrument now—was even he unavailable? Why didn't he answer? Why didn't——
A voice reached her. She recognized it.