Page:The Death-Doctor.djvu/112

100 Well, that's enough of my love-story, my friend; but you can see that I was in that frame of mind which stops at nothing. So at the very first opportunity I could get—it was a post-mortem—I made a virulent culture of some staphylococci, the germs which produce blood-poisoning, and a few days after my wife scratched her hand very badly with an unsuspected pin which lurked in one of her garments, with the result that in about ten days' time she was in bed, attended by a brother practitioner, and being nursed most assiduously by Estelle, who insisted, as she had had some training, on taking the place of a regular nurse.

"Poor dear little Babs," she said to me one night, as I sat brooding and wondering how things would turn out. "I think she is turning the corner. I am so glad!"

"Glad!" I muttered. "Glad! Estelle darling, come, let us abandon everything, and get away together—to America, Australia—where you will. I can't go on like this."

Like a silly fool I was quite prepared to give up everything—profession, honour, practice, home—if she would only come with me. But she looked at me with a half frightened air.

"I believe," she said in a low voice. "I