He rubbed his hands almost pleasantly.
"That quack's done for him—and his wine to-night finished the job. Well, I warned him against both. People that will not take advice must bide the consequences. Are you going to stay up for Dr. Mackenzie, Jean?"
"Of course," she said.
"Well then, I might as well get off to my bed. If there's any immediate danger,"—his face grew very solemn,—"if the end's expected in the night, or anything like that, just knock on my door."
The junior partner bade them a grave good-night and retired; and such imaginative persons as are not satisfied with this bald record of facts, may picture him either as offering up a brief prayer for his father's happy recovery, or meditating upon the image of his betrothed—or both.
CHAPTER VI
Fortunately, it proved unnecessary to disturb the junior partner during the night, but next morning, when he had heard the doctor's report and personally visited the sick-bed, he took the most serious view of the situation. He summoned his two married sisters, urging them to lose no time; he spent only half an hour at the office; and then he sat down with his Scotsman in the library (his Bible accessible in case of emergencies) to await the developments that he grieved to think were now practically inevitable. The doctor had paid a second visit and given the gloomiest report. Put in a nutshell, it came to this: that he could make neither head nor tail of his patient's symptoms, but that, as they were clearly the result of a course of treatment at the hands of an unqualified practitioner, it was improbable that Mr. Walkingshaw would recover from the consequences of his error.
In the afternoon he was told that his father would like to see him. He had finished the Scotsman and begun a conversation with his betrothed in a gently facetious vein, but it took him not a moment to adjust his features to the rigidity of an urn, and save for the faint squeaking of his boots, he ascended the stairs with noiseless solemnity. He found Mr. Walkingshaw propped up on pillows and breathing heavily. The demeanor of both was exactly becoming to the situation.