“Licking her hands. Every time I told her to go, Jack growled. Mebbe you had better come out yourself, Mr. Von Rosen.”
When Von Rosen entered the kitchen, he saw a little figure on the floor in a limp heap, with the dog frantically licking its hands, which were very small and brown and piteously outspread, as if in supplication.
“Mebbe you had better call up the doctor on the telephone; she seems to have swooned away,” said Jane Riggs. At the same time she made one long stride to the kitchen sink, and water. Von Rosen looked aghast at the stricken figure, which was wrapped in a queer medley of garments. He also saw on the floor near by a bulging suitcase.
“She is one of them pedlars,” said Jane Riggs, dashing water upon the dumb little face. “I rather guess you had better call up the doctor on the telephone. She don't seem to be coming to easy and she may have passed away.”
Von Rosen gasped, then he looked pitifully at the poor little figure, and ran back to his study to the telephone. To his great relief as he passed the window, he glanced out, and saw Doctor Sturtevant's automobile making its way cautiously over the icy street. Then for the first time he remembered that he had been due at that time about a matter of a sick parishioner. He opened the front door hurriedly, and stated the case, and the two men carried the little unconscious creature upstairs. Then Von Rosen came down, leaving the doctor and Martha with her. He waited in the study, listening to the sounds overhead, waiting impatiently for the doctor's return, which was not for half an hour or more. In the meantime Martha came downstairs on some errand to the kitchen. Von Rosen intercepted her. “What does Doctor Sturtevant think?” he asked.
“Dunno, what he thinks,” replied Martha brusquely, pushing past him.
“Is she conscious yet?”
“Dunno, I ain't got any time to talk,” said Martha, casting a flaming look at him over her shoulder as she entered the kitchen.
Von Rosen retreated to the study, where he was presently joined by the doctor. “What is it?” asked Von Rosen with an emphasis, which rendered it so suspicious that he might have added: “what the devil is it?” had it not been for his profession.
Sturtevant answered noiselessly, the motion of his lips conveying his meaning. Then he said, shrugging himself into his fur coat, as he spoke, “I have to rush my motor to see a patient, whom I dare not leave another moment, then I will be back.”