"Ho, now, Sir Jekyl, really now—"
"Promised—your honour."
"'Tisn't a fair position," said the practitioner, shaking his head, with his hands stuffed in his pockets, and staring dismally at the blood-stained linen. "I'll tell you what we must do—there are two supernumeraries I happen to know at the county hospital, and Hicks is a capital nurse. I'll write a line and they'll send her here. There's a room in there, eh? yes, well, she can be quartered there, and talk with no one but you and me; in fact, see no one except in your presence, don't you see? and egad, we must have her, or I'll give up the case."
"Well, yes; send for her."
CHAPTER XXV.
The Patient interrogated.
So Doctor Pratt scribbled a few lines on the back of his card, and Tomlinson was summoned to the door, and told to expedite its despatch, and "send one of the men in a dog-cart as hard as he could peg, and to be sure to see Doctor Hoggins," who had been an apprentice once of honest Pratt's.
"Tell her not to wait for dressing, or packing, or anything. She'll come just as she is, and we'll send again for her things, d'ye mind? and let him drive quick. It's only two miles, he must not be half an hour about it;" and in a low whisper, with a frown and a nod, he added to Tomlinson on the lobby, "I want her here."
So he sat down very grave by Sir Jekyl, and took his pulse, very low and inflammatory, he thought.