"Doctor Petrie?" she asked, nervously, as we descended.
"I am he," I said. "How is Mr. Smith?"
"Still insensible," was the reply.
Passing a knot of servants who stood at the foot of the stairs like a little flock of frightened sheep—we made our way into the room where my poor friend lay.
Dr. Hamilton, a gray-haired man of military bearing, greeted Sir Lionel, and the latter made me known to my fellow practitioner, who grasped my hand, and then went straight to the bedside, tilting the lampshade to throw the light directly upon the patient.
Nayland Smith lay with his arms outside the coverlet and his fists tightly clenched. His thin, tanned face wore a grayish hue, and a white bandage was about his head. He breathed stentoriously.
"We can only wait," said Dr. Hamilton, "and trust that there will be no complications."
I clenched my fists involuntarily, but, speaking no word, turned and passed from the room.
Downstairs in Dr. Hamilton's study was the man who had found Nayland
Smith.
"We don't know when it was done, sir," he said, answering my first question. "Staples and me stumbled on him in the dusk, just by the big beech—a good quarter-mile from the village. I don't know how long he'd laid there, but it must have been for some time, as the last rain arrived an hour earlier. No, sir, he hadn't been robbed; his money and watch were on him but his pocketbook lay open beside him;— though, funny as it seems, there were three five-pound notes in it!"