“I’m sick of being ordered about.” But I could barely move and breathing was becoming difficult to me, I had a sense of faintness, suffocation, the room grew dark. He opened the door and called nurse. Ella came in with her. I was conscious of that.
“What does she have when she is like this? Smelling salts, brandy?” Nurse began to fan me; my cheeks were very flushed.
Ella opened the windows, wide, quietly; the scent of the gorse came in. I did not want to speak, only to be able to breathe.
Nurse telegraphed him an enquiring glance. Strychnine? her dumb lips asked. He shook his head.
“Oxygen. Have you got a cylinder of oxygen in the house?” He took the pillows from under my head.
I don’t know what they tried or left untried. Whenever I opened my eyes I sought for Ella’s. I knew she would not let them do anything to me that might bring the pain back. I was only over-tired. I managed to say so presently. When I was really better and Dr. Kennedy gone, Ella said a bitter word or two about him. Nurse too thought she should have been called sooner. A good nurse, but dissatisfied up to now with all my treatment, with my change of doctors, with my resistance to authority, and Ella’s interference.
“Ella.” She had been sitting by the fire but came over to me at once.
“What is it? I am only going to stop a minute. Then I shall leave you to nurse. That man stopped too long, over-excited you. We mustn’t have him again, he doesn’t understand you.”
“Yes he does; perfectly.” My voice may have been faint, but I succeeded in making it urgent. “Ella, I want to see him again in the morning, nothing must prevent it, nothing. Don’t talk against him, I want him.”
“Then you shall have him,” she decided promptly. Notwithstanding my terrible weakness and want of breath I smiled at her.