Yet the doctor’s cheery face was grave that morning and his brow was wrinkled as he unfastened the bandages. Beyond a slight stiffness of certain sinews and the natural soreness of the cut flesh, Martin had never felt better in his life. After a disturbed slumber, when he dreamed that he was choking a wildcat—a cat with Angèle’s face which changed suddenly in death to Elsie Herbert’s smiling features—he lay awake for some hours. Then the pain in his wrists abated gradually, he fell sound asleep, and Mrs. Bolland took care that he was left alone until he awoke of his own accord at half-past eight, an unprecedented hour.
So the boy laughed at his mother’s fears. Her lips quivered, and she tried to choke back a sob. The doctor turned on her angrily.
“Stop that!” he growled. “I suppose you think I’m hoodwinking you. It is not so. I am very much worried about another matter altogether, so please accept my assurance that Martin is all right. He can run about all day, if he likes. The only consequence of disturbing these cuts will be that they cannot heal rapidly. Otherwise, they will be closed completely by the end of the week.”
While he talked he worked. The dressings were changed and fresh lint applied. He handed Mrs. Bolland a store of materials.
“There,” he said, “I need not come again, but I’ll call on Monday, just to satisfy you. Apply the lotion morning and night. Good-by, Martin. You did a brave thing, I hear. Good-by, Mrs. Bolland.”
He closed his bag hurriedly and rushed away. Mrs. Bolland, drying her eyes, and quite satisfied now, went to the door and gazed after him.
“He’s fair rattled wi’ summat,” she told another portly dame who labored up the incline at the moment. “He a’most snapped my head off. Did he think a body wouldn’t be scared wi’ his talk about malignous p’ison i’ t’ lad’s bluid, I wonder?”
The doctor did not pull up outside the “Black Lion.” He drove to the Vicarage—a circumstance which would most certainly have given Mrs. Bolland renewed cause for alarm, were she aware of it—and asked Mr. Herbert to walk in the garden with him for a few minutes.
The two conversed earnestly, and the vicar seemed to be greatly shocked at the outcome of their talk. At last they arrived at a decision. The doctor hastened back to the “Black Lion.” He did not remain long in the sick room, but scribbled a note downstairs and gave it to his man.
“Take that to Mr. Herbert,” he said. “I’ll make a few calls on foot and meet you at the bridge in a quarter of an hour.”