His emissaries were prompt. In less than ten minutes, all the appliances the household could furnish for the restoration of the failing life were at his command. An immense fire roared in the long-disused chimney; warm blankets, bottles of hot water and mustard-poultices were prepared by a corps of officious servants; the master of the mansion, with three or four friends at his heels, and a half-smoked cigar in his hand, had looked in for a moment, to hope that Dr. Ritchie would not hesitate to order whatever was needed, and to predict a favorable result as the meed of his skill.
Half an hour after her brother's visit, Mabel tapped at the door to inquire how the patient was, and whether she could be of use in any way. She still wore her evening dress, and the fire of excitement had not gone out in her eyes and complexion.
“Don't sit up longer,” said the doctor, with the authority of an old friend. “It will not benefit your protege for you to have a headache, pale cheeks, and heavy eyes to-morrow, while it will render others, whose claims upon you are stronger, very miserable.”
She thanked him laconically for his thoughtfulness, and bade him “good-night,” without a responsive gleam of playfulness. Her heart was weighed down with sick horror. The almost certainty of which he spoke with professional coolness, was to her, who had never within her recollection stood beside a death-bed, a thing too frightful to be anticipated without dread, however its terrors might be alleviated by affection and wealth. As the finale of their Christmas frolic—perhaps the consequence of wilful neglect in those who should have known better than to abandon the wanderer to the ravages of hunger, cold, and intoxication—the idea was ghastly beyond description.
She was about to diverge from the main hall on the second floor into the lateral passage leading to Mrs. Sutton's room in the wing, when her name was called in a gentle, guarded key by her sister-in-law.
CHAPTER IX. — HE DEPARTETH IN DARKNESS.
“COME in! I want to talk to you!” said Mrs. Aylett, beckoning Mabel into her chamber, from the door of which she had hailed her. “Sit down, my poor girl! You are white as a sheet with fatigue. I cannot see why you should have been suffered to know anything about this very disagreeable occurrence. And Emmeline has been telling me that Mrs. Sutton actually let you go up into that Arctic room.”
“It was my choice. Aunt Rachel went along to carry the light and to keep me company. She would have dissuaded me from the enterprise if she could,” responded Mabel, sinking into the low, cushioned chair before the fire, which the mistress of the luxurious apartment had just wheeled forward for her, and confessing to herself, for the first time, that she was chilly and very tired.