All was peaceful, and Maggie, with the tears undried on her long eyelashes, had fallen asleep when Dudley came back.
"I don't know how to apologise for being so long away," he said, in a low voice. "Talk of Scylla and Charybdis!" He asked a few simple questions, and then, leading the way into the kitchen, he pushed forward the shabby old armchair for her, and seated himself on the corner of the table.
"I am afraid you are very tired," he said,
"Oh no!"
"You are reserving that for to-morrow?"
He would have liked to feel her pulse, both as a matter of personal and of scientific interest, but he did not dare.
"I wonder what poor little Maggie and I would have done without you to-night," he said. "As it is, I have had a close shave with my man. I found him a good deal collapsed when I went back,—cold and clammy, with blue lines round his eyes."
"What did you do?" said Mona eagerly, with a student's interest.
"You may well ask. One's textbooks always fail one just at the point that offers a real difficulty in practice. They tell you how to get rid of and to neutralise the poison; they overwhelm you with Marsh's and Reinsch's tests; but how to keep the patient alive—that is a mere detail. Hot bottles were safe, of course, and 'in the right direction.' I was afraid to give stimulants, in case I should promote the absorption of any eddies of the poison, but finally I had to chance a little whisky-and-water, and that brought him round. I was very ill at ease about leaving you so long, but I thought some married woman from the cottar-houses would have been here before this."
"They won't come," said Mona, "I gave the old man a sovereign to hold his peace." And then she bit her lip, remembering that Miss Simpson's shop-girl could scarcely be supposed to have sovereigns to spare.