When we were in the garden, he noticed that I was trembling.
“Rouse your courage, Miss Jillgall,” he said. “In the Minister’s helpless state there is nobody whom I can speak to but yourself.”
I ventured to remind him that he might speak to Helena as well as to myself.
He looked as black as thunder when I mentioned her name. All he said was, “No!” But, oh, if you had heard his voice—and he so gentle and sweet-tempered at other times—you would have felt, as I did, that he had Helena in his mind!
“Now, listen to this,” he went on. “Everything that my art can do for Mr. Philip Dunboyne, while I am at his bedside, is undone while I am away by some other person. He is worse to-day than I have seen him yet.”
“Oh, sir, do you think he will die?”
“He will certainly die unless the right means are taken to save him, and taken at once. It is my duty not to flinch from telling you the truth. I have made a discovery since yesterday which satisfies me that I am right. Somebody is trying to poison Mr. Dunboyne; and somebody will succeed unless he is removed from this house.”
I am a poor feeble creature. The doctor caught me, or I should have dropped on the grass. It was not a fainting-fit. I only shook and shivered so that I was too weak to stand up. Encouraged by the doctor, I recovered sufficiently to be able to ask him where Philip was to be taken to. He said: “To the hospital. No poisoner can follow my patient there. Persuade him to let me take him away, when I call again in an hour’s time.”
As soon as I could hold a pen, I sent a telegram to you. Pray, pray come by the earliest train. I also telegraphed to old Mr. Dunboyne, at the hotel in London.
It was impossible for me to face Helena; I own I was afraid. The cook kindly went upstairs to see who was in Philip’s room. It was the housemaid’s turn to look after him for a while. I went instantly to his bedside.