Soon the dog-cart returned, bringing the ambulance and a couple of bearers from the Infirmary. Leroux was lifted on to the stretcher and covered with a blanket. The bearers started, the muffled form between them giving a ghastly suggestion of death in life; Sylvester walked by the side, the stragglers followed, and the trap brought up the rear.
“To my house,” said Sylvester.
The melancholy procession went on its way through the outskirts of the little town. The cottages gave place to villas, then came houses standing on their own grounds. Opposite the front gates of Woodlands was the doctor's house. Sylvester dismissed his followers at the gate and, taking Leroux's portmanteau from the trap, opened the door for the bearers and their burden, and directed their way upstairs. The old housekeeper, roused by the tramping, met them on the landing.
“It's a man hurt,” explained Sylvester. “Frank Leroux. We'll put him in my room.”
A short while afterwards, the unconscious man was settled in Sylvester's bed, a fire lighted, and Sylvester was left alone. Able to make a more minute diagnosis, he grew very grave and prepared for an all-night sitting.
In the morning Leroux was still unconscious.
Sylvester sent for a trained nurse, and as soon as she arrived and had received her instructions, he went over to Woodlands. The family were at breakfast. Miss Lanyon, a faded elderly woman, her lean shoulders enveloped in a black shawl, paused in the act of pouring out tea, tea-pot in hand.
“Oh, Sylvester, what a dreadful thing! We have just heard. How is he?”
He briefly described the accident and hinted at the result, which might be fatal. Everything depended upon treatment and nursing. He had been up all night.