Her low cry was smothered in the bed curtain, which she pressed against her mouth, and for a moment she swayed dizzily upon her feet. Paul Abbott had died while she lay asleep within a few feet of his bed. Overwhelming remorse deadened every other feeling and held her spellbound. Fully five minutes elapsed before a sense of duty aroused her to action.
Wheeling around, Miriam staggered rather than walked to the telephone standing on Abbott’s desk. She had jotted down Doctor Roberts’ ’phone call the night before, but it took her several seconds to get the central at Washington, and still others passed before a man’s voice told her that the physician was out making his morning rounds. At her urgent request the servant promised to locate Doctor Roberts and send him at once to Abbott’s Lodge.
As Miriam replaced the receiver on its hook she was conscious of a feeling of deadly nausea and she stumbled as she walked across the room and into the hall. She must have aid. Her repeated calls brought no response. What had become of the caretaker and his wife? A noise of some one moving in the hall below caused her to run down the staircase to the lower landing.
“Here—here, this way!” she gasped, and saw vaguely outlined a woman’s terrified face in front of her while the sound of a heavy tread coming down the staircase echoed in her ears. “Mr. Abbott—I—” Voice and strength failed her simultaneously, and before any one could reach her she lay in a crumpled heap on the landing, unconscious of the loud ringing of the gong over the front door.
It was approaching noon when a timid knock at her bedroom door brought Miriam Ward into the corridor and face to face with the caretaker’s wife.
“If you please, Miss, the doctor says do you feel better?” The question came in a gasp, characteristic of Martha Corbin. A gray ghost of a woman, timid to the verge of cowardice, she seldom spoke unless addressed.
“Much better,” replied the trained nurse. “Where is Doctor Roberts?”
“In there,” with a jerk of her thumb over her shoulder. “He wants to see ye.”
“Very well.” Miriam Ward closed her bedroom door with a firm hand. She had regained some hold upon her composure as her attacks of nausea ceased and the throbbing in her head lessened. Doctor Roberts had left her two hours before with the admonition to remain in bed until he saw her again, but her anxiety of mind had prevented her following his directions. She paused involuntarily outside of Paul Abbott’s bedroom, then, gathering courage, she stepped inside. Doctor Roberts turned at the sound of her approach and put down the telephone instrument.
“So you are up,” he said gruffly. “Well, how are you? Feeling stronger?”