"These are the handkerchiefs I took away yesterday," he said. "I suppose they belong to Mr. Herbert's household. My servant has washed them. Will you see that they are returned?"

"Mercy o' me!" cried Martha. "I nivver knew ye took 'em. What did ye want 'em for, docthor?"

"There might have been some malignant substance--some poisonous matter--in the cat's claws, and as the county a.n.a.lyst was engaged at my place on some other business I--Oh, come now, Mrs. Bolland, there's no need to be alarmed. Martin's wounds were cleansed, and the salt applied to the raw edges so promptly, that any danger which might have existed was stopped effectually."

Yet the doctor's cheery face was grave that morning and his brow was wrinkled as he unfastened the bandages. Beyond a slight stiffness of certain sinews and the natural soreness of the cut flesh, Martin had never felt better in his life. After a disturbed slumber, when he dreamed that he was choking a wildcat--a cat with Angle's face which changed suddenly in death to Elsie Herbert's smiling features--he lay awake for some hours. Then the pain in his wrists abated gradually, he fell sound asleep, and Mrs. Bolland took care that he was left alone until he awoke of his own accord at half-past eight, an unprecedented hour.

So the boy laughed at his mother's fears. Her lips quivered, and she tried to choke back a sob. The doctor turned on her angrily.

"Stop that!" he growled. "I suppose you think I'm hoodwinking you. It is not so. I am very much worried about another matter altogether, so please accept my a.s.surance that Martin is all right. He can run about all day, if he likes. The only consequence of disturbing these cuts will be that they cannot heal rapidly. Otherwise, they will be closed completely by the end of the week."

While he talked he worked. The dressings were changed and fresh lint applied. He handed Mrs. Bolland a store of materials.

"There," he said, "I need not come again, but I'll call on Monday, just to satisfy you. Apply the lotion morning and night. Good-by, Martin. You did a brave thing, I hear. Good-by, Mrs. Bolland."

He closed his bag hurriedly and rushed away. Mrs. Bolland, drying her eyes, and quite satisfied now, went to the door and gazed after him.

"He's fair rattled wi' summat," she told another portly dame who labored up the incline at the moment. "He a'most snapped my head off. Did he think a body wouldn't be scared wi' his talk about malignous p'ison i'

t' lad's bluid, I wonder?"

The doctor did not pull up outside the "Black Lion." He drove to the Vicarage--a circ.u.mstance which would most certainly have given Mrs.

Bolland renewed cause for alarm, were she aware of it--and asked Mr.

Herbert to walk in the garden with him for a few minutes.

The two conversed earnestly, and the vicar seemed to be greatly shocked at the outcome of their talk. At last they arrived at a decision. The doctor hastened back to the "Black Lion." He did not remain long in the sick room, but scribbled a note downstairs and gave it to his man.

"Take that to Mr. Herbert," he said. "I'll make a few calls on foot and meet you at the bridge in a quarter of an hour."

The note read:

"There is no hope. Things are exactly as I feared."

The vicar, looking most woebegone, murmured that there was no answer. He procured his hat and walked slowly to the inn, which was crowded, inside and out. Nearly every man knew him and spoke to him, and many noted that "t' pa.s.son looked varra down i' t' mooth this mornin'."

He went upstairs. The conjecture flew around at once that Pickering was worse. Someone remembered that Kitty Thwaites said the patient had experienced a touch of fever overnight. Surely, his wound had not developed serious symptoms. The chief herd of his Nottonby estate had seen him during the preceding afternoon and found his master looking wonderfully well. Indeed, Pickering spoke of attending to some business matter in person on Sat.u.r.day, or on Monday for certain. Why, then, the vicar's visit? What did it portend? People gathered in small groups and their voices softened. By contrast, the blare of lively music and the whistle of the roundabout were intolerably loud.

In the quiet room at the back of the hotel, with its scent of iodoform mingling with the sweet breath of the garden wafted in through an open window, Pickering moved restlessly in bed. His face was flushed, his eyes singularly bright, with a glistening sheen that was abnormal.

By his side sat the pallid Betsy, reading a newspaper aloud. She followed the printed text with difficulty. Her mind was troubled. The fatigue of nursing was nothing to one of her healthy frame, but her thoughts were terrifying. She lived in a waking nightmare. Had she dared to weep, she might have felt relief, but this sure solace of womankind was denied her.

The vicar's entrance caused a sensation. Betsy, in a quick access of fear, dropped the paper, and Pickering's face blanched. Some secret doubt, some inner monitor, brought a premonition of what was to come. He flinched from the knowledge, but only for a moment.

Mr. Herbert essayed most gallantly to adopt his customary cheerful mien.

"Dr. MacGregor asked me to call and see you, George," he said. "I hope you are not suffering greatly."

"Not at all, thanks, vicar. Just a trifle restless with fever, perhaps, but the wound is nothing, a mere cut. I've had as bad a scratch and much more painful when thrusting through a thorn hedge after hounds."

"Ah. That is well."

The reverend gentleman seemed to be strangely at a loss for words. He glanced at Betsy.

"Would you mind leaving me alone with Mr. Pickering for a little while?"

he said.

The wounded man laughed, and there was a note in his voice that showed how greatly the tension had relaxed.

"If that's what you're after, Mr. Herbert," he said promptly, "you may rest a.s.sured that the moment I'm able to stir we'll be married. I told Mr. Beckett-Smythe so yesterday."

"Indeed; I am glad to hear it. Nevertheless, I want to talk with you alone."

The vicar's insistence was a different thing to the wish expressed by a magistrate and a police superintendent. Betsy went out at once.

For an appreciable time after the door had closed no word was spoken by either of the men. The vicar's eyes were fixed mournfully on the valley, through which a train was winding its way. The engine left in its track white wraiths of steam which vanished under the l.u.s.ty rays of the sun.

The drone of the showman's organ playing "Tommy Atkins" reached the hardly conscious listeners as through a telephone. From a distant cornfield came the busy rattle of a reaping machine. The harvest had commenced a fortnight earlier than usual. Once again was the bounteous earth giving to man a hundredfold what he had sown. "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." Out there in the field were garnered the wages of honest endeavor; here in the room, with its hospital perfume, were being awarded the wages of sin, for George Pickering was condemned to death, and it was the vicar's most doleful mission to warn him of his doom.

"Now, Mr. Herbert, pitch into me as much as you like," said the patient, breaking an uneasy silence. "I've been a bad lot, but I'll try to make amends. Betsy's case is a hard one. You're a man of the world and you know what the majority of these village la.s.ses are like; but Betsy----"

The vicar could bear the suspense no longer. He must perform his task, no matter what the cost.

"George," he broke in tremulously, "my presence here to-day is due to a very sad and irrevocable fact. Dr. MacGregor tells me that your condition is serious, most serious. Indeed--indeed--there is no hope of your recovery."

Pickering, who had raised himself on an elbow, gazed at the speaker for an instant with fiery eyes. Then, as though he grasped the purport of the words but gradually, he sank back on the pillow in the manner of one pressed down by overwhelming force. The vicar moved his chair nearer and grasped his friend's right hand.

"George," he murmured, "bear up, and try to prepare your soul for that which is inevitable. What are you losing? A few years of joys and sorrows, to which the end must come. And the end is eternity, compared with which this life is but a pa.s.sing shadow."

Pickering did not answer immediately. He raised his body again. He moved his limbs freely. He looked at a square bony wrist and stretched out the free hand until he caught an iron rail, which he clenched fiercely. In his veins ran the blood of a race of yeomen. His hardy ancestors had exchanged blow for blow with Scottish raiders who sought to steal their cattle. They had cracked the iron rind of many a marauder, broken many a border skull in defense of their lives and property. Never had they feared death by flood or field, and their descendant scoffed at the grim vision now.

"What nonsense is this MacGregor has been talking?" he shouted. "Die! A man like me! By gad, vicar, I'd laugh, if I wasn't too vexed!"

"Be patient, George, and hear me. Things are worse than you can guess.

Your wound alone is a small matter, but, unfortunately, the knife----"

"There was no knife! It was a pitchfork!"

"Bear with me, I pray you. You will need to conserve your energy, and your protest only makes my duty the harder. The knife has been submitted to a.n.a.lysis, as well as corpuscles of your blood. Alas, that it should fall to me to tell it! Alas, for the poor girl whom you have declared your intention to marry! The knife had been used to carve grouse, and some putrid matter from a shot wound had dried on the blade. This was communicated to your system. The wound was cleansed too late. Your blood was poisoned before the doctor saw you, and--and--there is no hope now."

The vicar bowed his head. He dared not look in the eyes of the man to whom he was conveying this dire sentence. He felt Pickering subsiding gently to the pillow and straightening his limbs.

"How long?"

The words were uttered in a singularly calm voice--so calm that the pastor ventured to raise his sorrow-laden face.

"Soon. Perhaps three days. Perhaps a week. But you will be delirious.

You have little time in which to prepare."

Again a silence. A faint shriek reached them from afar, the whistle of the train entering Nottonby, the pleasant little town which Pickering would never more see.