“There’s no use in crying about it,” he said, quietly. “It would be more to the purpose, Valeria, if you thanked God that you have got out of that room safe and sound. Come with me.”
He took the key out of the lock, and led me downstairs into the hall. After a little consideration, he opened the front door of the house. The gardener was still quietly at work in the grounds.
“Your master is taken ill,” Benjamin said; “and the woman who attends upon him has lost her head—if she ever had a head to lose. Where does the nearest doctor live?”
The man’s devotion to Dexter showed itself as the woman’s devotion had shown itself—in the man’s rough way. He threw down his spade with an oath.
“The Master taken bad?” he said. “I’ll fetch the doctor. I shall find him sooner than you will.”
“Tell the doctor to bring a man with him,” Benjamin added. “He may want help.”
The gardener turned around sternly.
“I’m the man,” he said. “Nobody shall help but me.”
He left us. I sat down on one of the chairs in the hall, and did my best to compose myself. Benjamin walked to and fro, deep in thought. “Both of them fond of him,” I heard my old friend say to himself. “Half monkey, half man—and both of them fond of him. That beats me.”
The gardener returned with the doctor—a quiet, dark, resolute man. Benjamin advanced to meet them. “I have got the key,” he said. “Shall I go upstairs with you?”