Dr. Paull's Theory: A Romance

								

stared, stared and frowned, then jerked his head away as from an
unpleasant object.
Since the old man had been resolutely driving into the City, against
much warning and advice, all had been a blank. Now he was awakening amid
the most unpleasant sensations: his limbs heavy as lead, his head
curiously light. At first he squinted at the strange objects around him,
struggling to focus them aright, like a semi-conscious infant. As his
sight adjusted itself, he found that there were really many beds—a row
of beds. He began to count them, but before he had reached two figures
he felt sick and faint, and instinctively turned back for help.
A lithe strong arm was round him, a glass with some cordial was at his
lips. He swallowed the draught, and helplessly subsided.
As he revived he began to think.
“This is real,” was his first thought. “What has happened to me?”
After the thought had hummed about in his mind like a spinning-top, it
subsided, tottered, and tumbled. He, as it were, picked it up.
“Who am I?” he stammered, suddenly, to Hugh, who was sitting near, his
eyes alert. He had not meant that, but it came out higgledy-piggledy,
somehow, and he listened to his own voice wonderingly.
“You are quite safe, Sir Roderick Pym,” said Hugh, gently. “A few hours
ago you were thrown out of your carriage, and were brought here. You
have been slightly—faint—but you will soon be all right again, and able
to go home.”
“A—hospital!” Sir Roderick looked round with evident disgust.
“Who—knows?” he added, with a glance of alarm.
Hugh hastened to relate details, slowly, clearly, while the nurse
administered some light nourishment.
Sir Roderick listened attentively. The only question he asked was if his
mare, Kitty, had suffered.
“I wouldn’t have had anything happen to Kitty,” he began, emphatically.
Then, as he glanced up at Hugh from under his shaggy grey eyebrows, he
seemed to remember that he was speaking to a stranger, and stopping
short, sank wearily back.
“I took you for a vision of ‘Hamlet,’” he said, with a short laugh. “You
looked like it—all black against the light, bending over your books.”
“My black clothes?” said Hugh. “I am just in mourning for my mother. I
am house-surgeon here.”
Sir Roderick looked at him less coldly, and murmured some thanks. Then
he asked the time.
“I want to telegraph. I was expected home—in the country—to-day,” he
said. “Perhaps—I could go this afternoon.”
Hugh convinced him that this would be, if not impossible, the height of
imprudence.
Sir Roderick listened to reason, but bargained that he should write a
telegram now, at once, while he was able.
So excitedly did he plead, that Hugh reluctantly fetched a telegram form
from the secretary’s room, and propped his troublesome patient up in the
bed, that he might fill it in himself.