DIES IRÆ.
[Stories From the Diary of a Doctor.]
By the Authors of "The Medicine Lady."
XI.—TRAPPED.
On a certain evening in the winter of the year before last, I was sent for in a hurry to see a young man at a private hotel in the vicinity of Harley Street. I found my patient to be suffering from a violent attack of delirium tremens. He was very ill, and for a day or two his life was in danger. I engaged good nurses to attend him, and sat up with him myself for the greater part of two nights. The terrible malady took a favourable turn, the well-known painful symptoms abated. I persevered with the usual remedies to insure sleep, and saw that he was given plenty of nourishment, and about a week after his seizure Tollemache was fairly convalescent. I went to visit him one evening before he left his room. He was seated in a great armchair before the fire, his pipe was near him on the mantelpiece, and a number of Harper's Magazine lay open, and face downwards, on a table by his side. He had not yet parted with his nurse, but the man left the room when I appeared.
"I wish you'd give me the pleasure of your company for half an hour or so," said Tollemache, in a wistful sort of voice.