The lethodyneoh, yes; THATS all right. But the operation itself is so extremely dangerous; though Dr. Sebastian says he has called in the best surgeon in London for all such cases. They are rare, he tells meand Nielsen has performed on six, three of them successfully.
We gave the girl the drug. She took it, trembling, and went off at once, holding Hildas hand, with a pale smile on her face, which persisted there somewhat weirdly all through the operation. The work of removing the growth was long and ghastly, even for us who were well seasoned to such sights; but at the end Nielsen expressed himself as perfectly satisfied. A very neat piece of work! Sebastian exclaimed, looking on. I congratulate you, Nielsen. I never saw anything done cleaner or better.
A successful operation, certainly! the great surgeon admitted, with just pride in the Masters commendation.
AND the patient? Hilda asked, wavering.
Oh, the patient? The patient will die, Nielsen replied, in an unconcerned voice, wiping his spotless instruments.
That is not MY idea of the medical art, I cried, shocked at his callousness. An operation is only successful if
He regarded me with lofty scorn. A certain percentage of losses, he interrupted, calmly, is inevitable, of course, in all surgical operations. We are obliged to average it. How could I preserve my precision and accuracy of hand if I were always bothered by sentimental considerations of the patients safety?
Hilda Wade looked up at me with a sympathetic glance. We will pull her through yet, she murmured, in her soft voice, if care and skill can do it,MY care and YOUR skill. This is now OUR patient, Dr. Cumberledge.
It needed care and skill. We watched her for hours, and she showed no sign or gleam of recovery. Her sleep was deeper than either Sebastians or Hildas had been. She had taken a big dose, so as to secure immobility. The question now was, would she recover at all from it? Hour after hour we waited and watched; and not a sign of movement! Only the same deep, slow, hampered breathing, the same feeble, jerky pulse, the same deathly pallor on the dark cheeks, the same corpse-like rigidity of limb and muscle.
At last our patient stirred faintly, as in a dream; her breath faltered. We bent over her. Was it death, or was she beginning to recover?
Very slowly, a faint trace of colour came back to her cheeks. Her heavy eyes half opened. They stared first with a white stare. Her arms dropped by her side. Her mouth relaxed its ghastly smile.... We held our breath.... She was coming to again!
But her coming to was slowvery, very slow. Her pulse was still weak. Her heart pumped feebly. We feared she might sink from inanition at any moment. Hilda Wade knelt on the floor by the girls side and held a spoonful of beef essence coaxingly to her lips. Number Fourteen gasped, drew a long, slow breath, then gulped and swallowed it. After that she lay back with her mouth open, looking like a corpse. Hilda pressed another spoonful of the soft jelly upon her; but the girl waved it away with one trembling hand. Let me die, she cried. Let me die! I feel dead already.
Hilda held her face close. Isabel, she whisperedand I recognised in her tone the vast moral difference between Isabel and Number Fourteen,Is-a-bel, you must take it. For Arthurs sake, I say, you MUST take it.
The girls hand quivered as it lay on the white coverlet. For Arthurs sake! she murmured, lifting her eyelids dreamily. For Arthurs sake! Yes, nurse, dear!
Call me Hilda, please! Hilda!
The girls face lighted up again. Yes, Hilda, dear, she answered, in an unearthly voice, like one raised from the dead. I will call you what you will. Angel of light, you have been so good to me.
She opened her lips with an effort and slowly swallowed another spoonful. Then she fell back, exhausted. But her pulse improved within twenty minutes. I mentioned the matter, with enthusiasm, to Sebastian later. It is very nice in its way, he answered; but it is not nursing.
I thought to myself that that was just what it WAS; but I did not say so. Sebastian was a man who thought meanly of women. A doctor, like a priest, he used to declare, should keep himself unmarried. His bride is medicine. And he disliked to see what he called PHILANDERING going on in his hospital. It may have been on that account that I avoided speaking much of Hilda Wade thenceforth before him.
He looked in casually next day to see the patient. She will die, he said, with perfect assurance, as we passed down the ward together. Operation has taken too much out of her.
Still, she has great recuperative powers, Hilda answered. They all have in her family, Professor. You may, perhaps, remember Joseph Huntley, who occupied Number Sixty-seven in the Accident Ward, some nine months sincecompound fracture of the arma dark, nervous engineers assistantvery hard to restrainwell, HE was her brother; he caught typhoid fever in the hospital, and you commented at the time on his strange vitality. Then there was her cousin, again, Ellen Stubbs. We had HER for stubborn chronic laryngitisa very bad caseanyone else would have diedyielded at once to your treatment; and made, I recollect, a splendid convalescence.
What a memory you have! Sebastian cried, admiring against his will. It is simply marvellous! I never saw anyone like you in my life except once. HE was a man, a doctor, a colleague of minedead long ago.... Why he mused, and gazed hard at her. Hilda shrank before his gaze. This is curious, he went on slowly, at last; very curious. Youwhy, you resemble him!
Do I? Hilda replied, with forced calm, raising her eyes to his. Their glances met. That moment, I saw each had recognised something; and from that day forth I was instinctively aware that a duel was being waged between Sebastian and Hilda,a duel between the two ablest and most singular personalities I had ever met; a duel of life and deaththough I did not fully understand its purport till much, much later.
Every day after that, the poor, wasted girl in Number Fourteen grew feebler and fainter. Her temperature rose; her heart throbbed weakly. She seemed to be fading away. Sebastian shook his head. Lethodyne is a failure, he said, with a mournful regret. One cannot trust it. The case might have recovered from the operation, or recovered from the drug; but she could not recover from both together. Yet the operation would have been impossible without the drug, and the drug is useless except for the operation.
It was a great disappointment to him. He hid himself in his room, as was his wont when disappointed, and went on with his old work at his beloved microbes.
I have one hope still, Hilda murmured to me by the bedside, when our patient was at her worst. If one contingency occurs, I believe we may save her.
What is that? I asked.
She shook her head waywardly. You must wait and see, she answered. If it comes off, I will tell you. If not, let it swell the limbo of lost inspirations.
Next morning early, however, she came up to me with a radiant face, holding a newspaper in her hand. Well, it HAS happened! she cried, rejoicing. We shall save poor Isabel Number Fourteen, I mean; our way is clear, Dr. Cumberledge.
I followed her blindly to the bedside, little guessing what she could mean. She knelt down at the head of the cot. The girls eyes were closed. I touched her cheek; she was in a high fever. Temperature? I asked.
A hundred and three.
A hundred and three.
I shook my head. Every symptom of fatal relapse. I could not imagine what card Hilda held in reserve. But I stood there, waiting.
She whispered in the girls ear: Arthurs ship is sighted off the Lizard.
The patient opened her eyes slowly, and rolled them for a moment as if she did not understand.
Too late! I cried. Too late! She is deliriousinsensible!
Hilda repeated the words slowly, but very distinctly. Do you hear, dear? Arthurs ship it is sighted.... Arthurs ship at the Lizard.
The girls lips moved. Arthur! Arthur! Arthurs ship! A deep sigh. She clenched her hands. He is coming? Hilda nodded and smiled, holding her breath with suspense.
Up the Channel now. He will be at Southampton tonight. Arthur at Southampton. It is here, in the papers; I have telegraphed to him to hurry on at once to see you.
She struggled up for a second. A smile flitted across the worn face. Then she fell back wearily.
I thought all was over. Her eyes stared white. But ten minutes later she opened her lids again. Arthur is coming, she murmured. Arthur coming.
Yes, dear. Now sleep. He is coming.
All through that day and the next night she was restless and agitated; but still her pulse improved a little. Next morning she was again a trifle better. Temperature fallinga hundred and one, point three. At ten oclock Hilda came in to her, radiant.
Well, Isabel, dear, she cried, bending down and touching her cheek (kissing is forbidden by the rules of the house), Arthur has come. He is here down below I have seen him.
Seen him! the girl gasped.
Yes, seen him. Talked with him. Such a nice, manly fellow; and such an honest, good face! He is longing for you to get well. He says he has come home this time to marry you.
The wan lips quivered. He will NEVER marry me!
Yes, yes, he WILLif you will take this jelly. Look herehe wrote these words to you before my very eyes: Dear love to my Isa! If you are good, and will sleep, he may see youto-morrow.
The girl opened her lips and ate the jelly greedily. She ate as much as she was desired. In three minutes more her head had fallen like a childs upon her pillow and she was sleeping peacefully.
I went up to Sebastians room, quite excited with the news. He was busy among his bacilli. They were his hobby, his pets. Well, what do you think, Professor? I cried. That patient of Nurse Wades
He gazed up at me abstractedly, his brow contracting. Yes, yes; I know, he interrupted. The girl in Fourteen. I have discounted her case long ago. She has ceased to interest me.... Dead, of course! Nothing else was possible.
I laughed a quick little laugh of triumph. No, sir; NOT dead. Recovering! She has fallen just now into a normal sleep; her breathing is natural.
He wheeled his revolving chair away from the germs and fixed me with his keen eyes. Recovering? he echoed. Impossible! Rallying, you mean. A mere flicker. I know my trade. She MUST die this evening.
Forgive my persistence, I replied; buther temperature has gone down to ninety-nine and a trifle.
He pushed away the bacilli in the nearest watch-glass quite angrily. To ninety-nine! he exclaimed, knitting his brows. Cumberledge, this is disgraceful! A most disappointing case! A most provoking patient!
But surely, sir I cried.
Dont talk to ME, boy! Dont attempt to apologise for her. Such conduct is unpardonable. She OUGHT to have died. It was her clear duty. I SAID she would die, and she should have known better than to fly in the face of the faculty. Her recovery is an insult to medical science. What is the staff about? Nurse Wade should have prevented it.
Still, sir, I exclaimed, trying to touch him on a tender spot, the anaesthetic, you know! Such a triumph for lethodyne! This case shows clearly that on certain constitutions it may be used with advantage under certain conditions.
He snapped his fingers. Lethodyne! pooh! I have lost interest in it. Impracticable! It is not fitted for the human species.
Why so? Number Fourteen proves
He interrupted me with an impatient wave of his hand; then he rose and paced up and down the room testily. After a pause, he spoke again. The weak point of lethodyne is this: nobody can be trusted to say WHEN it may be usedexcept Nurse Wade,which is NOT science.
For the first time in my life, I had a glimmering idea that I distrusted Sebastian. Hilda Wade was rightthe man was cruel. But I had never observed his cruelty beforebecause his devotion to science had blinded me to it.
CHAPTER II
THE EPISODE OF THE GENTLEMAN WHO HAD FAILED FOR EVERYTHING
One day, about those times, I went round to call on my aunt, Lady Tepping. And lest you accuse me of the vulgar desire to flaunt my fine relations in your face, I hasten to add that my poor dear old aunt is a very ordinary specimen of the common Army widow. Her husband, Sir Malcolm, a crusty old gentleman of the ancient school, was knighted in Burma, or thereabouts, for a successful raid upon naked natives, on something that is called the Shan frontier. When he had grown grey in the service of his Queen and country, besides earning himself incidentally a very decent pension, he acquired gout and went to his long rest in Kensal Green Cemetery. He left his wife with one daughter, and the only pretence to a title in our otherwise blameless family.
My cousin Daphne is a very pretty girl, with those quiet, sedate manners which often develop later in life into genuine self-respect and real depth of character. Fools do not admire her; they accuse her of being heavy. But she can do without fools; she has a fine, strongly built figure, an upright carriage, a large and broad forehead, a firm chin, and features which, though well-marked and well-moulded, are yet delicate in outline and sensitive in expression. Very young men seldom take to Daphne: she lacks the desired inanity. But she has mind, repose, and womanly tenderness. Indeed, if she had not been my cousin, I almost think I might once have been tempted to fall in love with her.
When I reached Gloucester Terrace, on this particular afternoon, I found Hilda Wade there before me. She had lunched at my aunts, in fact. It was her day out at St. Nathaniels, and she had come round to spend it with Daphne Tepping. I had introduced her to the house some time before, and she and my cousin had struck up a close acquaintance immediately. Their temperaments were sympathetic; Daphne admired Hildas depth and reserve, while Hilda admired Daphnes grave grace and self-control, her perfect freedom from current affectations. She neither giggled nor aped Ibsenism.
A third person stood back in the room when I entereda tall and somewhat jerry-built young man, with a rather long and solemn face, like an early stage in the evolution of a Don Quixote. I took a good look at him. There was something about his air that impressed me as both lugubrious and humorous; and in this I was right, for I learned later that he was one of those rare people who can sing a comic song with immense success while preserving a sour countenance, like a Puritan preachers. His eyes were a little sunken, his fingers long and nervous; but I fancied he looked a good fellow at heart, for all that, though foolishly impulsive. He was a punctilious gentleman, I felt sure; his face and manner grew upon one rapidly.
Daphne rose as I entered, and waved the stranger forward with an imperious little wave. I imagined, indeed, that I detected in the gesture a faint touch of half-unconscious proprietorship. Good-morning, Hubert, she said, taking my hand, but turning towards the tall young man. I dont think you know Mr. Cecil Holsworthy.