"I have a question to ask you, Mark. It relates to the past. Who----"
"Oh, never mind the past," interrupted Mark, with a half-testy, half-careless sort of manner. "I'm sure there's enough worry in the present without going back to that of the past. I wish that horrid mine had been sunk a thousand fathoms deep before I had had anything to do with it. I daresay I shall pay you back some time!"
"It is not about the mine I wish to speak to you, or of payment either," calmly rejoined Oswald. "But, Mark, I want the truth from you--the truth, mind--upon another subject. It was you, was it not, who gave the chloroform to Lady Oswald?"
Mark made no reply, either truthful or otherwise. The question was so exceedingly unlike any he had expected that he only stared.
"It was supposed, I know, at the time to have been administered by Dr. Davenal. But I have reason to believe that it was administered by yourself during his temporary absence from the chamber, and against his sanction. Was it so, Mark?"
"I suppose you heard this from the doctor himself at the time?" was Mark Cray's remark. "I remember you were worriting over it."
"I beg you to answer my question, Mark. What you say shall go no further."
"Well, yes, it was so," said Mark; "though I'm sure I can't think why you want to bring up the thing now. I did give her the chloroform, but I gave it for the best. As I was to perform the operation I thought I had a right to exercise my own judgment, which was opposed to the doctor's. I was very sorry for the result, but I did it for the best."
"I wish you had told me the truth at the time, Mark. You suffered me to believe that the chloroform was given by Dr. Davenal."
"And what difference did it make to you which of us gave it?" was Mark Cray's reply, not an unnatural one. "You may guess that it was a thing I did not care to speak of. So long as it was assumed we gave the chloroform conjointly, in accordance with ordinary practice and our best judgment, nobody could say a word; but if it had been disclosed that I gave it by myself, on my own responsibility and against the doctor's opinion, I should have had the whole town carping at me."