The doctor was coming from the sick man’s chamber when we came to the house. They had placed Will in one of the private rooms, away from the dreadful gallery where the madmen were chained to the wall. With him were Lady Levett and Sir Robert.
The doctor coughed in his most important manner.
“Your obedient servant, Miss Pleydell. Sir, your most obedient, humble servant. You are come, no doubt, to inquire after the victim of this most unhappy affair. Poor Mr. William Levett, I grieve to say, is in a most precarious condition.”
“Can nothing save him? O doctor!”
“Nothing can save him, young lady,” he replied, “but a miracle. That miracle—I call it nothing short—is sometimes granted by beneficent Providence to youth and strength only when—I say only when—their possession is aided by the very highest medical skill that the country can produce. I say the very highest; no mere pretender will avail.”
“Indeed, doctor, we have that skill, I doubt not, in yourself.”
“I say nothing,”—he bowed and spread his hands—“I say nothing. It is not for me to speak.”
“And, sir,” said Harry, “you are doubtless aware that Sir Robert is a gentleman of a considerable estate, and that—in fact—you may expect——”
“Sir Robert,” he replied, with a smile which speedily, in spite of all his efforts, broadened into a grin of satisfaction, “has already promised that no expense shall be spared, no honorarium be considered too large if I give him back his son. Yet we can but do our best. Science is strong, but a poke of cold steel in the inwards is, if you please, stronger still.”
“Will you let me see Sir Robert?” I asked.