“Ah! You did not eat any of the—er—toadstools then?”
“Yes, sir, I did, as many as Ebenezer.”
“Humph! What time did your husband come home last night?”
“I don’t know, sir, I was asleep. But I tell you it was about two when he woke me up, and said he was so bad.”
“Take me upstairs,” said the doctor shortly; and he followed the woman up to her husband’s room, leaving Vane alone with a sinking heart, and wishing that he had not ventured to give the chanterelles to the gardener’s wife.
He could not sit down but walked about, listening to the steps and murmur of voices overhead, meaning to give up all experiments in edible fungi for the future, and ready to jump as he heard the doctor’s heavy step again crossing the room, and then descending the stairs, followed by Bruff’s wife.
“Do you think him very bad, sir?” she faltered.
“Oh, yes,” was the cheerful reply; “he has about as splitting a headache as a poor wretch could have.”
“But he will not die, sir?”
“No, Mrs Bruff,” said the doctor. “Not just yet; but you may tell him, by-and-by, when you get him downstairs, feeling penitent and miserable, that, if he does not leave off going to the Chequers, he’ll have to leave off coming to the Little Manor.”