“Quick! Go and fetch him! Three floors below!” said Egidia to Rivers, in a frenzied whisper.
“But he can’t have been such a devil!” she ejaculated, as the door closed on Rivers. Mrs. Elles’s strange and indubitable pallor it was that frightened her.
. . . . . . . .
In ten minutes Rivers came back again, followed by Dr. André. The latter was smiling, and his smile did not fade away, when confronted with the serious face of Egidia, and the prostrate form of his victim. Mrs. Elles had not spoken a word during Rivers’ absence, she appeared to have sunk into a state of coma. When Dr. André entered she opened her eyes wide, and it was on him, not on Rivers, that her gaze fell.
“Dear lady!” he said, going up to her, and taking one of her little helpless hands. “Forgive me! I have betrayed you!”
“What?” she said, and her voice had sunk to a whisper. “I have taken what you gave me. Tell them....”
“All right!” he said, in his foreign accent, gently stroking the hand which she abandoned to him. “I have given you a mauvais quart d’heure, I admit, but I have not killed you. Could you or any one else seriously imagine that I should be accessory to sending a sweet woman like you out of the world?”
“You have very nearly frightened her out of it!” Egidia, to whom the doctor’s flowery language did not appeal, remarked.
“I acted for the best,” he said earnestly. “Mr. Rivers will explain it to you. I gave Mrs. Elles something to take when she asked me, knowing that if I were to refuse her, the obstinate lady would have recourse to some other person less scrupulous than I. But what I gave her could not possibly harm her. A little bromide and water. The symptoms exhibited here are actually the result of sheer apprehension. Most curious! But she will not die, but live to be grateful to me.”
“Or to hate you for having made her ridiculous,” said Egidia, bluntly.