Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 6).djvu/99

 The moment I entered the room and looked at her, my heart gave a thankful bound. Whatever had happened, whatever dark cloud was hanging over the house, her young life was saved. The natural look of faintly returning health was reviving more and more each moment on her face. She turned her head when I entered the room and asked me a question.

"Is my husband in the house?" she asked.

"No," I replied, using that latitude with regard to truth which I considered in her case absolutely necessary. "He has been called out suddenly."

"I wonder he did not come to see me first," she answered, gently.

"He had not a moment—the case was urgent. It will be nice for him to find you se much better."

"Oh, yes, I am nearly well," she said, with a smile, and then she closed her eyes peacefully and sank into a natural sleep.

I motioned Dr. Roper out of the room, and told him as well as I could what had occurred.

The circumstances of the night, the appalling discovery we had made with regard to Mrs. Ogilvie's illness, had unmanned him a good deal, and now the grave fears which we were forced to share with regard to Dr. Ogilvie's fate completely prostrated the poor old man.

"I feel dazed, Halifax," he said. "I cannot realize what all this means. There isn't a better fellow living than Ogilvie; he is devoted to his wife; and she—well, pretty dear, I have known her from a baby. Who could have given her that opium?"

"The thing now is to find Dr. Ogilvie," I said.

"We will assume that he has been thrown from his horse."

"Why do you say we will assume it? Of course the mare threw him—nasty thing she always was. I often warned him about her. Why do you say we will assume that Dr. Ogilvie has met with an accident, Halifax?"

I made no reply, but the old doctor read my thoughts in my face.

"No, no," he said, "it isn't that; it can't be that. Well, I'll go myself and help to look for him."

He went downstairs, trembling and totterint.

"I will take care of Mrs. Ogilvie," I said, calling after him as he reached the lower landing. "Make your mind easy on that score, and have some wine before you start."

I then went back to the sick room. The patient still slept, and the nurses were softly moving about, putting the chamber in order, and removing all traces of the disorder which had reigned there while Death and the doctors were having their fight.

I sat down in an easy chair and, being very weary, dropped into a doze. I am sure I did not sleep long. When I awoke I observed that Mrs. Ogilvie was looking at me with a puzzled but gentle expression.

"I wish I knew your name," she said. "I have seen you in my dreams all night, but I don't know who you are."

"My name is Halifax," I said.

"Halifax," she repeated; "we don't know anyone called Halifax."

"You are unlikely to know me: I am a doctor from London; I have come down to help your husband with his patients, and as you were very ill last night and Dr. Ogilvie was away, I helped to look after you."

"Was I very ill?" she repeated. "I don't seem to remember anything, only that I was drowsy and hated to be disturbed. I had bad neuralgia yesterday morning, and my husband gave me something to drink. Soon