How long I had lain stunned upon the pavement I had no means of
knowing; I thought not long. I was surprised, on coming to myself, to
find that my injuries were not more severe.
My head felt uncomfortable, and I had a certain numbness or stiffness,
as one does from the first trial of long-disused limbs. I had always
limped a trifle since that accident beside the trout-brook; and, as I
staggered to my feet, I thought:--
"This will play the mischief with that old injury. I shouldn't wonder
if it came to crutches."
On the contrary, when I had walked some dozen steps I found that an
interesting thing had happened. The shock had dispersed the limp.
It was with a perfectly even and natural gait, although, as I say,
rather a weak one, that I trod the pavement to try what manner of man
the runaway had left me. I said:--
"It is one of those cases of nervous rearrangement. The shock has
acted like a battery upon the nerve-centres. Instead of a broken neck,
I have a cured leg. I'm a lucky fellow."
Having already, however, considered myself a lucky fellow for the
greater part of my life, this conclusion did not impress me with the
force which it might some other men; and, laughing lightly, as lucky
people do, at fortune, I turned to examine the condition of my horse
and carriage.
Donna was not to be seen. She had broken the traces, the breeching,
the shafts, everything, in short, she could, and cleared herself. I
had been unconscious long enough to give her time to make herself
invisible, and she had made the most of it; in what direction she had
gone, it was impossible for me to tell. The buggy was a wreck. No one
was in sight who seemed to have interest or anxiety in the matter. I
wondered that I did not find myself the victim of a gaping crowd. But
I reflected that the mishap had taken place in a quiet dwelling street,
not travelled at that hour, and that my fate, therefore, had attracted
no attention. I remembered, too, my patient, Mrs. Faith, and her boy,
and that dolt of a Henry's helpless face--the whole thing came to mind,
vividly. It occurred to me that the crowd might be at the scene of an
accident so terrible that no loafer was left to regard my lesser
misfortune. It was they who had been sacrificed. It was I who escaped.
My first thought was to go at once and learn the worst; but I found
myself a little out of my way. I really did not recognize the street
in which I stood. I had been for so many years accustomed to driving
everywhere that, like other doctors, I hardly knew how to walk; and by
the time I made my way back to the great thoroughfare where I had
collided with Mrs. Faith's carriage, no trace of the tragedy was to be
found; or at least I could not find any. After looking in vain, for a
while, I stopped a man, and asked him if there had not been a carriage
accident there within half an hour. He lifted his eyes to me stupidly,
and went on. I put the same question to some one else--a lazy fellow,
who was leaning against an iron railing and staring at me. But he
shook his head decidedly.
A young priest passed by, at this moment, saying an Ave with moving
lips and unworldly eyes, and I made inquiries of him whether a lady and
a child had just been injured in that vicinity by a runaway.
"Nay," he said, gazing at me with a luminous look. "Nay, I see
nothing."
After an instant's hesitation the priest made the sign of the cross
both upon himself and me; and then stretched his hands in blessing over
me, and silently went his way. I thought this very kind in him; and I
bowed, as we parted, saying aloud:--
"Thank you, Father," for my heart was touched, despite myself, at the
manner of the young devotee.
It had surely been my intention, on failing to find any traces of the
accident in the spot where I supposed that it had taken place, to go at
once to the house of Mrs. Faith, and inquire for her welfare and the
boy's. It was the least I could do, under the circumstances.
Apparently, however, I myself was more shaken than I had thought; for
after my brief interview with the priest I speedily lost my way, and
could not find my patient's street or number. I searched for it for
some time confusedly; but the brain was clearly still affected by the
concussion--so much so that it was not long before I forgot what I was
searching for, and went my ways with a dim and idle purpose, such as
must accompany much of the action of those in whom the relation between
mind and body has become, for any cause, disarranged.
After an interval--how long I cannot tell--of this suspended
intelligence, my brain grew more clear and natural, and I remembered
that I was very late at the hospital, at the consultation, at Brake's,
at every appointment of the evening; so late that my accustomed sense
of haste now began to possess me to the exclusion of everything else.
I remembered my wife, indeed, and wondered if I had better go back and
tell her that I was not hurt. But it did not strike me as necessary.
Donna, if she had not broken her neck somewhere, by this time, would
run straight for the stable; she would not go home. The buggy was a
wreck, and the police might clear it away. There was no reason to
suppose that Helen would hear of the accident, that I could see, from
any source. There would be no scare. I had better go about my
business, and tell her when I got home. News like this would keep an
hour or two, and everybody the better for the keeping.
Reasoning in this manner, if it can be said to be reasoning, I took my
way to the hospital as fast as possible. I did not happen to find a
cab; and I gave myself the unusual experience of hailing a horse-car.
The car did not stop for my signal, and I flung myself aboard as best I
might; for a man so recently shaken up, with creditable ease, I thought.
Trusting to this circumstance, when we reached the hospital I leaped
from the car, which was going at full speed; it was not till I was well
up the avenue that I recalled having forgotten to offer my fare, which
the conductor had forgotten to demand.
"My head is not straight yet," I said. The little incident annoyed me.
In the hospital I found, as I expected, a professional cyclone raging.
The staff were all there except myself, and so hotly engaged in
discussion that my arrival was treated with indifference. This was
undoubtedly good for me, but it was not, therefore, agreeable to me;
and I entered at once with some emphasis upon the dispute in hand.
"You are entirely wrong," I began, turning upon my opponents. "This
institution had seven hundred more applicants than it could accommodate
last year. We are not chartered to turn away suffering. We exist to
relieve it. It is our business to find the means to do so, as much as
it is to find the true remedy for the individual case. It is"--
"It is an act of financial folly," interrupted my most systematic
professional enemy, a certain Dr. Gazell. He had a bland voice which
irritated me like sugar sauce put upon horse-radish. "It cannot be
done without mortgaging ourselves up to our ears--or our eaves. I
maintain that the hospital can better bear to turn off patients than to
turn on debt."
"And I maintain," I cried, tempestuously, "that this hospital cannot
bear to do either! If the gentlemen gathered here to-night--the
members of this staff, representing, as they do, the wealthiest and
most influential _clienteles_ in the city--if we cannot among us pledge
from our patients the sum needed to put this thing through, I say it is
a poor show for ourselves. I, for one, am ready to raise fifteen
thousand dollars within three months. If the rest of you will do your
share in proportion"--
"Dr. Thorne has always been a little too personal, in this matter,"
said Gazell, reddening; he did not look at me, for embarrassment, but
addressed the chairman of the meeting with a vague air of being in
earnest, if any one could be got to believe it.
"No doubt about that," said one of the staff in an undertone. "Thorne
is"--I thought I caught the added words, "unreasonable fellow," but I
would not give myself the appearance of having done so.
"But we can't afford to quarrel with him altogether," suggested
Chirugeon, still in a tone not meant for me to overhear. And with this
they went at it again, till the discussion reached such warmth, and the
motion to leave the subject with the trustees, such favour, that, in
disgust, I seized my hat and strode out of the room.
Smarting, I rushed away from them, and angrily out-of-doors again. I
was exceedingly angry; but this gave me no more, perhaps (though I
thought, a little), than the usual discomfort.
From the hospital I hurried to the consultation; where I was now well
over-due. I found the attendant physician about to leave; in fact, I
met him on the stairs, up which I had run rapidly, as soon as my ring
was answered in the familiar house. This man was followed by old Madam
Decker's daughter, who was weeping.
"She died at six o'clock, Dr. Halt," Miss Decker sobbed, "at six
precisely, for I noticed. We didn't expect it so soon."
"Nor I, either," said Halt, soothingly, "I did not anticipate"--
"Dead!" I cried. "Mrs. Decker dead? I did my best--I have met with an
accident. I could not come till now. Did she ask for me?"
"She talked of Dr. Thorne," sobbed Miss Decker, "as long as she could
talk of anything. She wondered if he knew, she said, how sick she was."
I hastened to explain, to protest, to sympathize, to say the idle words
with which we waste ourselves and weary mourners, at such times; but
the daughter paid little attention to me. She was evidently hurt at my
delay; and, thinking it best to spare her my presence, I bowed my head
in silence, and left the house.
Halt followed me, and we stood together for a moment outside, where his
carriage and driver awaited him.
"Was she conscious to the end?" I asked.
"Yes," he murmured. "Yes, yes, yes. It is a pity. I'm sorry for that
girl."
Nodding shortly in my direction, he sprang into his coupe, and drove
away.
I had now begun to be very restless to get home. It seemed suddenly
important to see Helen. I felt, I knew not why, uneasy and impatient,
and turned my steps toward town.
"But I must stop at Brake's," I thought. This seemed imperative; so
much so that I went out of my course a little, to reach his house, a
pretty, suburban place. I remember passing under trees; and the depth
of their shadow; it seemed like a bay of blackness into which the night
flowed. I looked up through it at the sky; stars showed through the
massed clouds which the wind whipped along like a flock of titanic
celestial creatures. I had not looked up before, since the accident.
The act gave me strange sensations, as if the sky had lowered, or I had
risen; the sense of having lost the usual scale of measurement. This
reminded me that I was still not altogether right.
"I have really hurt my head," I thought, "I ought to get home. I must
hurry this business with Brake. I must get to Helen."
But Brake was not at home. As I went up the steps, his servant was
ushering out some one, to whom I heard the man say that Mr. Brake had
left word not to expect him to-night.
"Does he ever stay late at the office?" I asked, thinking that the
panic might render this possibly.
The man turned the expressionless countenance of a well-trained servant
upon me; and repeated:--
"Mr. Brake is not at home. I know nothing further about Mr. Brake's
movements."
This reply settled the matter in my own mind, and I made my way to
Stock Street as fast as I might. I could not make it seem unnecessary
to see Brake. But Helen--Helen-- The sooner this wretched detention
was over, the sooner to see her. I had begun to be as nervous as a
woman; and, I might add, as unreasonable as a sick one. I had got
myself under the domination of one of those fixed ideas with which I
had so little patience in the sick. I could not see Helen till I had
seen Brake: this was the delusion. I succumbed to it, and knew that I
succumbed to it, and could not help it, and knew that I could not help
it, and did the deed it bade me. As I hurried on my way, I thought:--
"There has been considerable concussion. But Helen will take care of
me. It's a pity I spoke so to Helen."
Stock Street, when I reached it, had a strange look to me. I was not
used to being there at such an hour; few of us are. The relative
silence, the few passers, the long empty spaces in the great
thoroughfare, told me that the hour was later than I thought. This
added to my restlessness, and I sought to look at my watch, for the
first time since the accident; it was gone. I glanced at the high
clock at the head of the street; but the light was imperfect, and with
the vertigo which I had I did not make out the hour. It might, indeed,
be really late. This troubled me, and I hastened my steps till I broke
into a run.
It occurred to me, indeed, that I might be arrested for the suspicions
under which such a pace, at such an hour and in such a street, would
place me. But as I knew most of the members of the force in that
region more or less well, this did not trouble me. I ran on,
undisturbed, passing a watchman or two, and came quickly to Brake's
place. It was locked.
This distressed me. I think I had confidently expected to find him
there. It did not seem to me possible to go home without seeing my
broker. I stood, uncertain, rattling at the heavy door with imbecile
impatience. This act brought the police to the spot in three minutes.
It was Inspector Drayton who came up, the well-known inspector, so long
on duty in Stock Street; a man famed for his professional shrewdness
and his gentlemanly manner.
"I wish," I said, "Mr. Inspector, that you would be good enough to let
me in. I want to see Brake. I have reason to believe he is in his
office. I must get in."
"It is very important," I added; for the inspector did not answer
immediately, but looked at me searchingly.
"There was certainly some one meddling with this lock," he said, after
a moment's hesitation, looking stealthily up and down and around the
street.
"It was I," I replied, eagerly. "It was only I, Dr. Thorne. Come,
Drayton, you know me. I want to see Brake. I must see Brake. It is a
matter brought up by this panic--you know--the Santa Ma. He sent for
me. I absolutely must see Brake. It is a matter of thousands to me.
Let me in, Mr. Inspector."
"Come," for he still delayed and doubted, "let me in somehow. You
fellows have a way. Communicate with his watchman--do the proper
thing--anyhow--I don't care--only let me in."
"I will see," murmured the inspector, with a perplexed air; he had not
his usual cordial manner with me, though he was still as polished as
possible, and wore the best of kid gloves. I think the inspector
touched one of their electric signals--I am not clear about this--but
at any rate, a sleepy watchman came from within, holding a safety
lantern before him, and gingerly opened the huge door an inch or two.
"Let me come in," said the inspector, decidedly. "It is I--Drayton. I
have a reason. I wish to go to Mr. Brake's rooms, if you please."
The inspector slipped in like a ghost, and I followed him. Neither of
us said anything further to the watchman; we went directly to Brake's
place. He was not there.
"I will wait a few minutes," I said. "I think he will be here. I must
see Brake."
The inspector glanced at me as one does at a fellow who is behaving a
little out of the common course of human conduct; but he did not enter
into conversation with me, seeing me averse to it. I sank down wearily
upon Brake's biggest brown leather office chair, and put my head down
upon his table. I was now thoroughly tired and confused. I wished
with all my heart that I had gone straight home to Helen. The
inspector and the watchman busied themselves in examining the building,
for some purpose to which I paid no attention. They conversed in low
tones, "I heard a noise at the door, sir, myself," the watchman said.
"Why don't you tell him it was I?" I called; but I did not lift my
head. I was too tired to trouble myself. I must have fallen into a
kind of stupor.
I do not know how long I had remained in this position and condition,
whether minutes or hours; but when at last I roused myself, and looked
about, a singular thing had happened.
The inspector had gone. The watchman had gone. I was alone in the
broker's office. And I was locked in.