For an instant, not of the time but of thought, the doctor was startled.
Then, as the stately and beautiful woman rose to meet him, he understood.
She had decked herself, adorned her fair body with all the braveries she had so that she might be lovely and acceptable to her husband's eyes as he came home to her. Came home to her . . . like this!
Morton Sims had shaken the slim hand, murmured some words of condolence, and hastened to the motionless figure upon the couch.
His deft fingers were feeling, pressing, touching with a wonderful instinct, the skull beneath the tumbled masses of blood-clotted hair.
Nothing there, scalp wounds merely. Arms, legs—yes, these were uninjured too. The collar-bone was intact under the flesh that cushioned it. The skin of the left wrist was lacerated and bruised—Lothian, of course, had been sitting on the left side of the driver when he fell like a log from the gig—but the bones of the hand and arm were normal. There was not a single symptom of brain concussion. The deep gurgling breathing, the alarming snore-like sound that came from between the curiously pure and clear-cut lips, meant one thing only.
Morton Sims stood up.
Mary Lothian was waiting. There was an agony of expectation in her eyes.
"Not the least reason to be alarmed," said the doctor. "Some nasty cuts in the scalp, that is all."
She gave a deep sigh, a momentary shudder, and then her face became calm.