Then he went down and unlatching the door confronted the Albesons with a lie of convenience:
“Mr. Jessamine has been taken very ill—very ill. Saddle me a horse and I’ll go for a doctor.”
There was a tonic in the privilege of action. He flung into his clothes, and kissing Patty good-by, ran down the stairs and out into the starlit deeps. He stepped from the porch right into the saddle, and the horse launched out like a sea gull.
Startled from sleep, it was wild with the unusual call to action and ran with fury along the black miles. RoBards’ hat flew back at the first rush of wind but he did not pause to hunt it. The air was edged with cold and watery with mist. Now and then the road dipped into pools of fog. Riding in such night was like being drawn through the depths of an ocean. RoBards swam as on the back of a sea horse. There was no sound except the snorting of his nag and the diddirum-diddirum of hoofs that made no question of the road, but smoothed it all with speed.
The doctor they always summoned at night was Dr. Matson, a fierce wizard who would never have been invoked if there had been a more gracious physician available. Dr. Matson horrified ladies by asking them blunt questions about the insides they were not supposed to have, and by telling them things in horrible Anglo Saxon simples instead of decent Latinity. He cursed outrageously, too. But he never let rain or sleet or flood or ice or any other impoliteness of circumstances keep him from a patient. He was not often entirely sober and now and then he was ugly drunk. But he never fell off his horse; his hands never hesitated, his knives rarely slipped, even though the patients leaped and yelped. Though he battled death with oaths and herbs and loud defiances, he fought. He fought like a swimmer trying to bring ashore some swooning soul about to drown.
He was just putting up his horse after a long ride in the opposite direction when RoBards reined in. Dr. Matson did not wait to be invited, but slapped the saddle on the dripping back of his puffing nag, climbed aboard and was on the way before he asked, “Well, what’s the matter with who this time?”
Doctors and lawyers have a right to the truth in a crisis and RoBards was glad of the dark when he confessed the shame of self-murder that had stained the old house.
It was evident to Dr. Matson that he could be of no use as a physician, and another might have turned back, but he knew there would still be need of him. RoBards finally managed to say:
“Is there any way to—must we—have you got to let everybody know that the poor old gentleman—that he—did it himself?”
Matson did not answer for half a mile. Then he laughed aloud: