“That’s right. Come home with me, Mr North. I should like a few words with you, if you would not mind.”
Horace North gladly entered the carriage, for he thought the old man not fit to go alone, and in the excitement at the hospital no one paid him the slightest attention.
“Now come to my room,” said the old man, as they were set down at his residence in Harley Street. “Hurt? Oh, no!—a trifle. I want to talk to you about your plans. We’ll have a cup of coffee, a cigar, and a chat.”
That chat in the great surgeon’s study lasted till daybreak, and then Horace North walked back to his hotel with his brain on fire. For, with his ideas to a certain extent endorsed by the great authority he had just quitted, he saw himself on the eve of a grand discovery, one which should immortalise his name and benefit his fellow-creatures to a vast extent.
“It is like taking a plunge into the unknown,” he cried, as he walked hurriedly on, excited beyond measure. For Horace North was like the rest of the world—blind as to what would happen. Had he been otherwise, he would have buried his secret thoughts for ever sooner than have faced that which was to come.
Chapter Four.
Parson Salis Takes off his Coat.
Mary Salis was wrong, for her headstrong, passionate sister was ready to do whatever she pleased, and what pleased her then was to obey the summons contained in the note Dally Watlock delivered to her that morning.