Outside the passer-by paused to look curiously at the house. David
Trench hovered between life and death, and the town forgot the summer
heat in its anxious sympathy. No one had known what a great man he was,
what an irreparable loss his death would mean to the community. All
over the town little groups of prominent men discussed the catastrophe
with hushed breathing. The labourers who had done David’s bidding for
years wiped furtive tears from their eyes when they were told that the
case was all but hopeless.
Fifty--the meridian of life! A younger man would stand a better chance.
Dr. Schubert feared a spinal lesion. Yet the shock to the nervous
system might account for the torpor that had prevailed, with fleeting
lucid intervals, for four days. If that were all, the human machine
would right itself presently.
Early Sunday morning Mr. Marksley had come to the house to inquire
about the patient, and to repudiate any responsibility for the accident
... and had encountered Lavinia Trench’s tongue in a manner that he was
not likely to forget. She had another score to settle with this man and
his family, unnamed but not absent from the motive power of her attack.
The outburst had a salutary effect on the woman who, after the first
excitement of David’s home-coming, had moved with the automatism of a
sleep-walker. When he had gone, she sought Judith. Larimore must go at
once and arrange with Dr. Schubert for consultation, the best surgeon
in St. Louis.