CHAPTER XVI
When Grace Duvall, accompanied by the hotel clerk, found Ruth Morton lying on the floor in the parlor of her suite, her first act had been to call for a doctor.
Her second was to gather the unconscious girl in her arms, and carry her into the adjoining bedroom.
That Ruth was alive, filled Grace with joy. She had feared something far worse might have befallen the girl. Yet it was clear that some terrible shock had operated to reduce her to the condition in which she had been found. What this shock was, Grace could only surmise.
She placed the girl upon the bed, and proceeded to remove her clothing. By the time she had gotten her beneath the sheets, the clerk came in, accompanied by the hotel physician.
The latter, after a hasty examination, turned to Grace with a grave look. "The young woman has experienced a terrible shock of some sort," he said. "She is very weak, and her heart action is bad." He took some tablets from a bottle in his medicine case, and called for a glass of water. "Severe nerve-shock of this sort is a serious matter," he exclaimed. "Sometimes it is fatal, at others the mind may be permanently affected. The young lady must be kept absolutely quiet, of course. We will hope for the best. Give her a tablespoonful of this solution every hour. Force her to take it, even if she does not regain consciousness. I will look in again in an hour or two. But be sure that she is kept absolutely quiet."
Grace sat beside the unconscious girl for a long time in silence. Once she went into the next room and called up her hotel, thinking that Richard might have returned, but he had not. She felt that she could only wait where she was, until some word came from Leary.
The clerk, as soon as Ruth was attended to, had hastened down to the lobby, only to learn that the woman who had gone to Miss Bradley's room had not been seen.
It must have been almost an hour before Grace was informed by one of the bellboys that someone wished to speak to her on the telephone. She did not take the message in Ruth's room, the management having given instructions that no calls were to be transmitted there for fear of arousing the unconscious girl. She went quickly downstairs in the elevator, and repaired to a booth in the lobby. One of the maids had been left to watch over Ruth.
The message was from Leary, as Grace had anticipated.