He opened the verandah door, where Amar Singh and a very aggrieved Aberdeen terrier had sat since morning, and issued a swift order for hot water, mustard, warm turpentine; a grim repetition of the battle he had fought out a week ago. But now he fought single-handed, while Amar Singh and a small tremulous ayah, crouching beside a charcoal brazier in the verandah, kept up a steady supply of his primitive needs.
Thus James Mackay found him on his return; still doggedly applying friction and restoratives without having made an inch of progress for his pains. Darkness had fallen by now, and the one lamp, set well away from the bed, made a pallid oasis in its own vicinity. Desmond had flung aside his coat, and his thin shirt clung in patches to his damp body. His face was set in rigid lines; and the little doctor, who carried a heart of flesh under a porcupine exterior, was haunted for days by the despair in his eyes.
"How long have you been at it, man?" he asked without preamble.
"A lifetime, I should say. Possibly an hour."
"No change at all?"
"Not the slightest. But I know . . she's alive."
Mackay scrutinised the awful stillness on the bed.
"We must try hypodermic injection," he said gently. "And in the meantime . . ." he went over to a table strewn with sick-room paraphernalia, and poured out half a pint of champagne, "you'll please drink that."
And as Desmond obeyed automatically, his hand shook so that the edge of the tumbler rattled against his teeth. The body was beginning to assert itself at last. But the stinging liquid revived him; and in a silence, broken only by an abrupt direction or request from the Scotchman, the last available resources were tried again and yet again, without result. Finally Mackay looked up, and Desmond read the verdict in his eyes.
"My dear man, it's no use," he said simply. "She's beyond our reach now."