"Answer me one question, Mr. Brook," said Lady Hartledon, in her earnestness. "Would you apply these leeches were you treating the case alone?"
"No, madam, I would not."
Anne appealed to her husband. When the medical men differed, she thought the decision lay with him.
"I'm sure I don't know," returned Val, who felt perfectly helpless to advise. "Can't you decide, Anne? You know more about children and illness than I do."
"I would do so without hesitating a moment were it my own child," she replied. "I would not allow them to be put on."
"No, you would rather see him die," interrupted the dowager, who overheard the words, and most intemperately and unjustifiably answered them.
Anne coloured with shame for the old woman, but the words silenced her: how was it possible to press her own opinion after that? Sir Alexander had it all his own way, and the leeches were applied on either side the throat, Mr. Brook emphatically asserting in Lady Hartledon's private ear that he "washed his hands" of the measure. Before they came off the consequences were apparent; the throat was swollen outwardly, on both sides; within, it appeared to be closing.
The dowager, rather beside herself on the whole, had insisted on the leeches. Any one, seeing her conduct now, might have thought the invalid boy was really dear to her. Nothing of the sort. A hazy idea had been looming through her mind for years that Val was not strong; she had been mistaking mental disease for bodily illness; and a project to have full control of her grandchild, should he come into the succession prematurely, had coloured her dreams. This charming prospect would be ignominiously cut short if the boy went first.
Sir Alexander saw his error. There must be something peculiar in Lord Elster's constitution, he blandly said; it would not have happened in another. Of course, anything that turns out a mistake always is in the constitution—never in the treatment. Whether he lived or died now was just the turn of a straw: the chances were that he would die. All that could be done now was to endeavour to counteract the mischief by external applications.
"I wish you would let me try a remedy," said Lady Hartledon, wistfully. "A compress of cold water round the throat with oilsilk over it. I have seen it do so much good in cases of inward inflammation."