"Run, then, quick!" said Mary. "There's no time to be lost."
"Ay, and after I've sent Peter Matthew I'll come in again and get you something to eat. You must be fair pined."
Mary returned to the room again, and waited what seemed to her an interminable length of time, looking anxiously at the sick woman the whole time. She lay very still, almost motionless in fact, but Mary was sure she was not dead, and she prayed as she had never prayed before that she might live. As it seemed to her, it was not Paul's mother's life that hung in the balance, but Paul's.
At length Dr. White came, and went quickly into the bedroom. Dr. White was a tall, spare man, between forty and fifty years of age. He was one of those doctors who loved his profession with a love almost amounting to passion, and he had worked himself almost to a skeleton. People said that he ought to be a very rich man, but he was not. A great part of the service he rendered was a labour of love. Scores of people in Brunford wondered why he never sent a bill to them, and when he was asked the reasons for his remissness, he always put the inquirers off with a laugh. "Oh, you'll be getting it some day." The truth was he hated sending bills to poor people, and his great delight was not in receiving cheques or payment for his services, but in seeing his patients restored to health and strength again. He was almost worshipped in the town, and, indeed, no one worked so hard for the good of the people as he did in his own way.
When he entered the room he looked at Mary rather wonderingly, but asked no questions. He went straight to the patient's bedside, and examined her carefully. When he had completed his examination he turned to the young girl, who was watching him with wide, staring eyes.
"When did this happen?" he said.
Mary began to explain Mrs. Stepaside's relationship to the accused man in Manchester and of the sufferings through which she had gone.
"I know all about that," said the doctor. "But tell me the immediate cause of this."
As may be imagined, this was a difficult task, but Mary's ready wit helped her through with it.
"I brought her from Manchester this morning," she said. "She did not seem very well then, and she asked me to come with her. Then, then——" And her eyes rested upon the newspaper which she had been reading.