The doctor had sunk down into a corner, and was nursing his wounded arm, and staring in a frightened way at Capper. Capper, I noticed, had suddenly lost all his frenzy, precisely in the same fashion as he had lost it on that other occasion when he had attacked the same man. He now sat in the corner into which I had flung him, with his head bowed, and his hands plucking at his lips, exactly in the attitude of a naughty boy who had been caught in some wickedness and stopped. He glanced at me furtively, but said nothing.
"He—he tried—tried to kill me!" panted the doctor. "He tried—tried to throw me out of the train! You saw for yourself!"
"But why?" I asked. "What had you done?"
"Nothing—absolutely nothing!" he stammered, striving to rearrange his dress and to smooth his hair. "He suddenly said something—and then opened the door—and sprang at me."
"But what did he say?" I insisted. And it was curious that we both spoke of the man at the other end of the carriage as someone not responsible for what he had done.
"Never mind what he said!" exclaimed the doctor pettishly. "You just came in time. He'd have had me out in another moment."
In the surprise of his escape, the doctor did not seem astonished at finding me there so opportunely he merely looked at the dejected Capper in that frightened way, and kept the greatest possible distance from him.
"Why do you take the man about with you, if he's liable to these fits?" I asked.
"I don't take him about!" he exclaimed. "He follows me. I can't get rid of him. He sticks to my heels like a dog. I don't like it; one of these days it may happen that there's no one there in time—and that'll be the end of the matter." All this in a whisper, as he leaned forward towards where I sat.
"Give him the slip," I suggested; and now I watched the doctor's face intently.