"It could not have been Dr. Davenal."
"Yes it was, sir," repeated John Hamos. "Who else would be likely to undertake the operation but him? He and Mr. Cray were together, but it was the doctor who performed it. As of course it would be."
"But he did not give the chloroform?"
"Why, yes he did, sir. He gave it for the best. As was said afterwards at the inquest, they could not possibly foresee that what saved pain and was a blessing to thousands, would prove fatal to her ladyship."
"Who said that at the inquest? Dr. Davenal?"
"Mr. Cray, sir. The doctor wasn't present at the inquest; he was away from the town. He went away in the night, somebody said, just after the death: was fetched out to some patient at a distance, and didn't get back here till--Wednesday morning, I think it was."
"And she never rallied from the chloroform?"
"Never at all, sir. She died under it."
Oswald Cray said no more. He went up to the bedroom that he always used, there to wash off some of the travelling dust. But instead of proceeding at once to do so, he stood in thought with folded arms and bent brow, John Hamos's information respecting the chloroform troubling his brain.
Why should it trouble him? Could not he believe, as others did, that it was given in all due hope and confidence, according to the best judgment of the surgeons? No, he could not believe it, so far as regarded the chief surgeon, Dr. Davenal: and the reason was this.