“Well, Miss North,” said Dr Tighe, “nerves a bit jumpy this morning, eh? We’ll allow you a day in bed to settle them a little, but after that you must get up and help Mrs North to look after her patient.”
“Oh, I’ll get up to-day,” said Mabel faintly.
“No, no; don’t be in too great a hurry. Your brother will come in to ask you a question or two in a few minutes, and afterwards you shall try what a little more sleep and a little more slumber will do for you. It’s quite evident that nature never meant you for a frontierswoman.”
“Oh, Doctor,” expostulated Georgia, “think what she has gone through since she came here, and only out from home such a short time! Besides, nothing so bad as this has ever happened in our neighbourhood before.”
“At any rate, it’s the sort of thing you want to take to young if you’re to shine in it,” said the doctor. “Life in these parts is not exactly pretty, but it has its exciting moments. Nothing like what it had once, though. A predecessor of mine under General Keeling used to head cavalry charges and take forts in the intervals of his medical duties. I have no pleasant little recreations of that sort for my leisure hours. Now, Miss North, don’t let me see you dare to smile at the thought of my heading a cavalry charge. There was some object in training in those days, but naturally a man puts on weight when there’s nothing to do but potter about an hospital.”
“You see you’re not the only person in the world who hankers after thrilling experiences, Mab,” said Georgia, as she left the room with the doctor, and the words recalled to Mabel their conversation of three weeks since. Stretching out her hand, she took a mirror from the toilet-table and glanced at herself in it, only to drop the glass in horror. What a hollow-eyed wreck she looked! Was it possible that one night could work such a change? She had had her wish and tried experiments in reality, and she recoiled from the result.
“On the whole, I think I prefer the pleasing fictions of ordinary English life,” she said to herself.
“Good-morning, Mab,” said Dick’s voice, following a knock at the door. “I’m not going to disturb you long, but I want you to tell Tighe and me what you can remember about last night’s business. It’s necessary for me to know, or I wouldn’t bother you.”
With a shudder Mabel let her thoughts return to that homeward ride for a moment, then looked up suddenly. “Oh, now I remember!” she said. “My head is so stupid, I couldn’t think of it before. How is Mr Brendon?”
Both men had expected her to ask after the Commissioner, and Brendon’s name took them by surprise. “Brendon? Oh, he’s—he’s as well as he can be,” said Dr Tighe hastily, recovering himself first.