"I will, I will, my dear," replied Mr. Short kindly, "but I don't think the medicine I sent could spoil, and if it did it could have no evil effect. Now quiet yourself, my dear Mistress Emily; I am going to give you a draught which will soothe your nerves, and fit you better to bear all these terrible things."
He then had recourse to the little store of medicines he usually carried in his pocket, and administered first a stimulant and then a somewhat powerful narcotic. For about ten minutes he remained seated by Emily's bedside with her own maid standing at the foot, and during that time the poor girl spoke once or twice, asking anxiously after her father, and expressing a great desire to go to him. Gradually, however, her eyelid's began to droop, her sentences remained unfinished, and, in the end, she fell into a deep and profound sleep.
"She will not wake for six or eight hours," said Mr. Short, addressing the maid. "But when she does wake it would be better you should be with her, my good girl. If you like, therefore, you can go and take some rest in the meanwhile; but order yourself to be called at the end of five hours."
"If you are quite sure that she will remain asleep, sir," said the maid, "I will lie down, for I am sure sorrow wearies one more than work."
"She won't wake," said Mr. Short, "for six hours at least. I will now go and see Sir Philip," and descending the stairs he knocked at the door of the library, thinking that probably he should find it locked. The stern voice of Sir Philip Hastings, however, said "Come in," in a wonderfully calm tone; and when the surgeon entered he found Sir Philip seated at the library table, and apparently reading a Greek book, the contents of which Mr. Short could not at all divine.
CHAPTER XLIX.
I must now follow the groom on his road, first to the cottage of good Jenny Best, where he learned that Mr. Atkinson had gone away some five minutes before, and then to the house of the neighboring farm, where he found the person he sought still seated on his horse, but talking to the tenant at the door.
"Here, Mr. Atkinson," cried the groom as he came up; "here's a note for you from Mr. Short the surgeon--a sort of warrant, I believe; for he's a justice of the peace, you know, as well as a surgeon. Read it quick, Mr. Atkinson, read it quick; for it won't keep hot long; and if that woman isn't caught I think I'll hang myself."
"Bring us a light, farmer," said Mr. Atkinson, "quickly. What is all this about, John?"
"Why, Madam Hazleton has poisoned my lady, and she's as dead as a door nail," said the groom, "that's all; and bad enough too. Zounds, I thought she'd do some mischief; she was always so hard upon her horses."