Mr. Peele was in his pyjamas, and Patience struggled with an importunate desire to tell him that his hair stood on end. Mrs. Peele’s back hair was in a scant braid; the front locks were on pins. Her skin looked pallid and old. Honora, as usual, looked like a vision from heaven. Hal and her husband were in Newport, and there were no guests at Peele Manor.
“Are you sure,” asked Mr. Peele, as precisely as if his hair was parted in the middle and plastered on each side, “that anything is the matter? Does not the morphine always put him to sleep?”
“Not at once. You see he takes it internally, and it’s twenty minutes or half an hour before it takes effect. During that time he always groans, for he never takes it until the last minute. I heard him get up and return to bed; and then I knew something must be the matter because he was so quiet—”
“How could you let him drop it himself?” exclaimed Mrs. Peele, passionately. “How could you? What are you here for?”
“I offered to drop it for him, but he wouldn’t let me. I didn’t insist, as he always put it off—and we had had a quarrel—”
“My poor son!”
“Well, something’s got to be done,” said Mr. Peele. “I don’t like the way he’s beginning to breathe. There are one or two things we can do until the doctor comes.”
He raised Beverly’s arms above the head, brought them down and pressed them into the chest, repeating the act twenty or thirty times. Beverly meanwhile was breathing stertorously.
“Can’t I do something?” cried his mother, distractedly.
“I think we had better walk him,” said Mr. Peele, whose mouth was tightening. “Call Hickman.”