“Yes, the very thing,” cried the doctor, looking in the indicated direction.
George Harrington waited until a paroxysm was over, and the patient had for the moment ceased to struggle, before leaping upon a table and rapidly unhooking the piece of drapery, which was formed into a broad band, and tightly secured across the patient’s chest before being fastened below the couch.
“Half an hour to wait before we can get the medicine, I’m afraid,” said the doctor. “I want to get him composed, and then we might put him in a fly and drive up to his chambers.”
“You’ll never get him away to-night,” said George Harrington bluntly. “Rather hard on the ladies; but he is a relative, and it seems to me that you ought to keep him here.”
“I’m afraid he is right, Hampton,” said the doctor. “Good heavens! what a paroxysm.”
There was a long struggle, during which the delirious man made desperate efforts to get free.
“Down, beast!” he literally growled; and in his terrible fit he seemed to be struggling with the dog. “Down, brute! I’ll dash your brains out! Curse him! how strong he is?”
There was a few moments’ cessation, and Mrs Hampton, who had been wringing her hands by the window, and trying hard to master her emotion, came up to say calmly:
“Can I do anything?”
“Yes. Go and see whom Gertrude has sent,” cried the doctor impatiently. “If that old woman has gone, it will be an hour before she is back.”