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 ﻿without saying a word, ran for the doctor, with whom he returned in about a quarter of an hour.

The physician ordered silence in the first place, then felt the patient’s pulse, and, laying his ear on her heart, listened a good while. He then bled her, ordered her to be put into bed, and to have ice kept constantly on her head. He and the baron remained at last alone with the sick lady.

“Is there any hope?” asked Baron Mundy.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “A partial anæmia of the brain,” he said. “The right side of the body is paralyzed. She may come to herself soon—perhaps not for some hours; perhaps a general paralysis will take place, and then she will not return to consciousness again. In any case, sir baron, it is impossible that her former health and strength can ever return.”

Mundy bent his head sadly. He knelt down at his mother’s bedside and kissed her hand. A tear dropped from his eyes upon it.