"Of course it has ... he won't hear—you needn't be uneasy. I was just like that.... Well!—we'll talk outside if you like.... Yes, look at this, Frank: Prorogation is next Wednesday, when this Bill will receive the Royal Assent, and become law. Until next Wednesday at midday, or thereabouts, Challis's wife isn't his wife, and any woman he marries on Monday or Tuesday is. He couldn't even be convicted of bigamy unless his first marriage was held legal, and that would be rather discourteous to the Royal Assent on Wednesday. Now do you see?"
"Surely you never can imagine...."
"Well!"
"Surely you never can imagine that Sir Challis and Ju were going to make a runaway match of it, to outwit the action of this Bill...."
"I can only see this," says the Baronet: "that if they did not do so, they were losing the only chance they had left of making an honourable match of any sort or kind. Isn't that the doctor?"
It is the footstep of the roan, unmistakable, and the wheels of the dogcart, at speed. It is poor little Lizarann's friend, Dr. Sidrophel. But all his old look has left him—a look as though he was born to be amused, and found his patients diverting—as he comes quickly to Challis's room, meeting the two gentlemen on the way, to whom he speaks very little. He nods once or twice, in reply to a brief abstract of the accident, saying only, "Let's have a look at him!" He finds time to say that the Rector could not come, but would come later. There was a good deal to be done. The Baronet did not seem to understand this.
The household has fought shy of touching an insensible patient, pending a doctor on the way, especially as there is no visible hæmorrhage. The blood from a cut on the temple was not renewed when the face was wiped with a sponge on his first arrival at the house. The doctor makes a very rapid examination. "You wish him to remain here, Sir Murgatroyd?" he says.
"To remain here? Of course I do."
"Then I must have his clothes off first. The cut's nothing on the forehead. That can wait."
The coat must be sacrificed, but it can't be helped. Slit up the sleeves, and off with it! Better than jarring him about in his present state. Once wardrobe-saving is discarded, it is easy work to get the author in trim for a careful overhauling. No bones broken, is the verdict. All the worse! His head took most of his weight, and bore the shock. A broken knee-joint might have spared his brain. As it is, Dr. Pordage seems to think the net volumes may come slower in the future. Besides, you never can tell at first about the spine in cases of this sort.