". . . Dingworth Ickson, Rary, Mita. Sorten Mims. Ha, ha! ha! Tubes of poison—damn them all, blast them all—Jesus of the Cross! my wife's face as she lay there dead, forgiving me!
"—Rita you pup of a girl, going off with a boy like Dicker. Rita! Rita! You're mine—don't make such a howling noise, my girl, you'll create a scandal—Rita! Rita!—damn you, can't you keep quiet?
"All right, Mary darling. But why have you got on a sheet instead of a nightdress? Mary! Why have they tied your face up under the chin with that handkerchief? And what's that you're holding out to me on your pale hand? Is that the membrane? Is that really the diphtheria membrane which choked you?—Come closer, let me see, old chalk-faced girl. . . ."
At the hospital the house-surgeon on duty who admitted him said that death must supervene within twelve or fourteen hours.
He had not seen a worse case.
But when he realised who the fighting, tied, gibbering and obscene object really was, bells rang in the private rooms of celebrated doctors.
The pulsing form was isolated.
Young doctors came to look with curiosity upon the cursing mass of flesh that quivered beneath the broad bands of webbing which held it down.
Older doctors stood by the bed with eyes full of anxiety and pain as they regarded what was once Gilbert Lothian; bared the twitching arms and pressed the hypodermic needles into the loose bunches of skin that skilled, pitiful fingers were pinching and gathering.
When they had calmed the twitching figure somewhat, the famous physicians who had been hastily called, stood in a little group some distance from the bed, consulting together.