"Not a bit of it, sir. Burrill ain't no coward, especially when he's in liquor; and he and me's on good enough terms, too; though, of course," said Brooks, recollecting himself, and glancing anxiously at the reclining figure of the injured one, "of course, I would never stand by and see a lady struck down, sir."
"Manifestly not," replied the doctor, drily. "Then, as he would not fear you, and could not fear me, he must have been in the first stages of 'snake seeing.'"
"It's my opinion, he took you for somebody else, as he has reasons to be afraid of," said one of the women, with an emphatic nod.
But here the voice of the heroine of the occasion rose high above the rest.
"John Burrill wasn't so drunk as to run away from a man he never saw, or to see crooked," she said, fiercely. "I saw the look on his face, blinded tho' I was, and he's afraid of you, Doctor Heath. I don't know why. There's some secrets in John Burrill's life that I don't know, and there's more that I wish I didn't know; but here, or somewhere else, he has known you, sir. Perhaps only by sight; but he's afraid of you, that's certain."
There was no reply from Doctor Heath; he was busy over his medicine case. He prepared a lotion, to be applied to the bruises, and a sedative, to be applied to the nerves of the patient, who was beginning to recover herself in a measure, and launched out into a torrent of invective against the author of her trouble; after which she rushed into a wild recital of her wrongs, beginning at the time when she left a good place in England, to follow the fortunes of John Burrill, and running with glib tongue over the entire gamut of her trials since. And all of this, although it was far from new to the dwellers of Mill Avenue, was listened to, by them, with absorbed interest, and the proper accompaniment of ejaculations, at the proper places. During this discourse, to which Brooks listened with evidences of liveliest interest, Doctor Heath remained seemingly inattentive, waiting for a lull in the storm; when it came at last, he ascertained as briefly as possible, who among the women would remain, and pass the night with Mrs. Burrill; gave her direction, as to the use she was to make of the medicines he had prepared, and buttoned his coat about him, preparatory to departure.
As his hand was upon the latch, the voice of his patient arrested him.
"Doctor," she said, earnestly. "It wouldn't be gratitude in me to let you go away without a word of warning. I don't want to pry into your affairs, but let me tell you this: You are not done with John Burrill; you took him by surprise to-night; but, I'll wager he is over his scare by now, and he is plotting how he can get another sight at you, unbeknown to yourself; and, if he has reason to be afraid of you, then look out for him; you have reasons for being afraid too."
Doctor Heath hesitated a moment, and a shade of annoyance crossed his face, then he said in his usual careless tone:
"Give yourself no uneasiness about this matter, madam; I never saw the scoundrel before, and he was simply afraid of my fist. However, if he ever should cross my path, be assured I shall know how to dispose of him;" and Clifford Heath bowed and went out into the night, little recking that he had left his life in the hands of five old women.