This put Price into a fever of mingled anger and perplexity, and not knowing what else to do she telegraphed to Martin on his ship, telling him that I was ill and asking what doctor she ought to call in to see me.
Inside an hour a reply came not from Tilbury but from Portsmouth saying:
"Call Doctor —— of Brook Street. Am coming up at once."
All this I heard for the first time when Price, with another triumphant look, came into my bedroom flourishing Martin's telegram as something she had reason to be proud of.
"You don't mean to say that you telegraphed to Mr. Conrad?" I said.
"Why not?" said Price. "When a lady is ill and her husband pays no attention to her, and there's somebody else not far off who would give his two eyes to save her a pain in her little finger, what is a woman to do?"
I told her what she was not to do. She was not to call the doctor under any circumstances, and when Martin came she was to make it plain to him that she had acted on her own responsibility.
Towards midnight he arrived, and Price brought him into my room in a long ulster covered with dust. I blushed and trembled at sight of him, for his face betrayed the strain and anxiety he had gone through on my account, and when he smiled at seeing that I was not as ill as he had thought, I was ashamed to the bottom of my heart.
"You'll be sorry you've made such a long journey now that you see there's so little amiss with me," I said.
"Sorry?" he said. "By the holy saints, I would take a longer one every night of my life to see you looking so well at the end of it."