Mrs. Brookes came.
“Will you please send to Mr. Avory, the new surgeon,” said Donal, “and ask him, in my name, to come to the castle.”
The earl was so ill, however, as to be doubtful, much as he desired them, whether, while rendering him for the moment less sensible to them, any of his drugs would do no other than increase his sufferings. He lay with closed eyes, a strange expression of pain mingled with something like fear every now and then passing over his face. I doubt if his conscience troubled him. It is in general those, I think, who through comparatively small sins have come to see the true nature of them, whose consciences trouble them greatly. Those who have gone from bad to worse through many years of moral decay, are seldom troubled as other men, or have any bands in their death. His lordship, it is true, suffered terribly at times because of the things he had done; but it was through the medium of a roused imagination rather than a roused conscience: the former deals with consequences; the latter with the deeds themselves.
He declared he would see no doctor but his old attendant Dowster, yet all the time was longing for the young man to appear: he might—who could tell?—save him from the dreaded jaws of death!
He came. Donal went to him. He had summoned him, he said, without his lordship’s consent, but believed he would see him; the earl had been long in the habit of using narcotics and stimulants, though not alcohol, he thought; he trusted Mr. Avory would give his sanction to the entire disuse of them, for they were killing him, body and soul.
“To give them up at once and entirely would cost him considerable suffering,” said the doctor.
“He knows that, and does not in the least desire to give them up. It is absolutely necessary he should be delivered from the passion.”
“If I am to undertake the case, it must be after my own judgment,” said the doctor.
“You must undertake two things, or give up the case,” persisted Donal.
“I may as well hear what they are.”