The men had bid the Countess good-night, and had gone down to the Count’s study to smoke and chat before separating. Presently their host began to ask the Professor about his work, and then it was that Herriard learned a fact which gave him food for thought, welcome or unwelcome, he could not for the moment decide. He had met Dr. Hallamar several times already, had accepted without further question the fact that he was one of Vienna’s most distinguished pathologists, and although inclined to wonder that one so eminent and naturally sought after at home should spend so much time in England, had, from a reluctance to talk “shop,” which his good breeding prompted, spoken little to the doctor of their respective professions. But now he was for the first time to be made aware of Hallamar’s specialty.
The basis on which the Professor’s fame, now European, rested, was the treatment of spinal disease and lesions, in the practice of which he had performed some marvellous cures. And Herriard had up to that moment never been aware of this.
“Severe spinal injuries are not, then, necessarily incurable?” he asked, waking up to the knowledge and the interest the subject held for him, as he joined in the conversation with somewhat remarkable eagerness.
“Certainly not,” was the doctor’s laconic reply.
“Even when the patient has been deprived of the use of the lower limbs?”
Hallamar gave a shrug. “Some cases are incurable, yes. But it has been my privilege to cure many which had been pronounced hopeless.”
“The results of accidents, say railway accidents?”
“Certainly. It is to railway accidents that very many, if not the majority, of these cases of total loss of power in the lower limbs from shock are to be attributed.”
“And you cure them, Professor?”
Hallamar bowed, with a little deprecating smile. “I have the happiness to cure many.”