"No!" stammered Matthew awkwardly. "I I fell down."
"It's an ugly bruise," returned Renwick slowly, looking at the other questioningly; yet he said no more but swung his bag forward in his hand and with it motioned the other towards the house.
They went in. Stillness and blackness immediately surrounded them.
"Get a light, man, for heaven's sake," said Renwick irritably. The longer he was with Matthew, the more his quick judgment estimated and condemned the other's weakness and indecision. "Couldn't you have seen to all this before I arrived? You'll need to pull yourself together if you want to help your mother."
"It's all right," whispered Matthew, "I have a box in my pocket." With a shaking hand he struck a match and lit the small gas jet in the hall, and in this dim wavering gleam together they moved forward, following their own flickering shadows as they mounted the stairs. The door of Mrs. Brodie's room stood half open and from within came the sound of quick breathing, at which Matthew broke down and sobbed, "Thank God, she's alive!"
By a miracle of heroic endeavour she had made her way back to her own room and now lay helpless, like a wounded animal that, by a last supreme effort, has reached its lair. The doctor took the matches from Matthew's useless fingers and, having lit the gas in the bedroom, guided him quietly out of the room, then closing the door, he turned and seated himself beside the figure upon the bed His dark, sombre eyes fixed themselves upon the outlines of her ravaged figure and, as he gently felt the quick, compressible pulse and noted the sunken hollows where emaciation had already touched her, his face shadowed slightly at the suspicion already forming in his mind. Then he laid his palm upon her body softly, with a sensitive touch which registered immediately the abnormal resistance of her rigid muscles, and simultaneously the concern of his face deepened. At this moment she opened her eyes and fastened them appealingly upon his, then whispered slowly:
"You've come!" Her words and her regard recognised him as her deliverer. He altered his expression, adapting his features, the instant she looked at him, to an air of kind and reassuring confidence.
"It hurts you here," he indicated gently, by a pressure of his hand. "This is the place."
She nodded her head. It was wonderful to her that he should immediately divine the seat of her pain; it invested him with a miraculous and awe-inspiring power; his touch at once seemed healing and his gently moving hand became a talisman which would discover and infallibly reveal the morbid secret of her distress. Willingly she submitted her racked body to his examination, feeling that here was one in whom lay an almost divine power to make her well.
"That's better," he encouraged, as he felt her relax. "Can you let me go a little deeper just once?" he queried. Again she nodded her head and, following his whispered injunction, tried to breathe quietly, whilst his long, firm fingers sent shivers of pain pulsating through her. "That was splendid!" He thanked her with a calm consideration. "You are very brave." Not by so much as the flicker of his eyelids could she have discerned that, deep in the tissues of
her body, he had discovered nodules of a wide-rooted growth which he knew to have progressed far beyond the aid of any human skill.
"How long have you had trouble?" he asked casually "Surely this Is not the first attack you've had?"
With difficulty she spoke.
"No! I've had it for a long time, off and on, Doctor, but never for such a spell as this. The pain used to go away at once, but this one is a long time in easin'. It's better, mind you, but it hasna gone."
"You've had other symptoms surely, Mrs. Brodie," he exclaimed, his speaking eye conveying a meaning beyond his simple words. "You must have known you were not right. Why did you not see about it sooner?"
"I knew well enough," she answered, "but I seemed never to have the time to bother about myself." She made no mention of her husband's intolerance as she added, "I just let it gang on. I thought that in time it would go away."
He shook his head slowly in a faint reproof, saying:
"You've neglected yourself sadly, I'm afraid, Mrs. Brodie. It may mean that you'll be laid up in bed for a little. You must make up your mind for a rest that's what you've needed for a long time. Rest and no worry!"
"What's wrong with me, then?" she whispered. "It's it's nothing serious?"
He raised himself from the bed and surveyed her kindly.
"What did I say about worrying?" he replied. "I'm coming again to-morrow for a fuller examination, when you have no pain. Just now you are going to have a good sleep. I've something here to give you relief."
"Can you ease me?" she murmured weakly. "I couldna bear yon again."
"You'll have no more of that," he comforted her. "I'll see to it."
She watched him silently as he picked up his bag, opened it and produced a small phial from which he measured some drops carefully into a glass; then, as he added some water and turned to her again, she placed her worn hand on his and said, movingly, "You're so kind to me. It's no wonder your name's on a' bodies' tongues. I canna but thank you for your goodness in coming to me to-night, and thank you I do with all my heart."
"You drink this, then," he murmured, gently pressing her dry, calloused fingers. "It's the very thing for you."
She took the glass with all the sublime trust of a young child and drained it to the dark dregs, forced even a faint, tragic smile to her pale lips as she whispered:
"That was bitter, Doctor. It maun be good medicine."
He smiled back at her reassuringly.
"Now rest," he ordained. "You need a good long sleep;" and, with her hand still in his, he sat down again beside her, waiting whilst the opiate took effect. His presence reassured her by its benign, magnetic power; the talisman that she clasped as though she feared to relinquish it, comforted her; occasionally her eyes would open to regard him gratefully. Then her pupils contracted slowly, the drawn lines of her features became erased, drowsily she murmured:
"God bless you, Doctor. 'Twas you saved my Mary's life and yell make me better too. Come to me again please." Then she slept.
Slowly he disengaged his hand from her now flaccid grasp, repacked his bag, and stood gazing at her dormant form. His face, wiped clean of its protecting film of sanguine assurance, was heavy with a sad knowledge, mingled with a pensive, human sympathy. He remained motionless for a moment, then he covered her more
warmly with the bedclothes, lowered the gas and went out of the room.
At the foot of the stairs Matt was awaiting him, his pale, apprehensive countenance shiny with the blanched pallor of a sickly moon.
"How is she?" he asked in a low tone. "Is she better?"
"She is out of pain now, and sleeping," answered Renwick. "That was the immediate necessity for your mother." He looked directly at the other, wondering how much he could tell him.
"Where is your father?" he asked finally. "I feel I ought to see him."
Matthew's glance wilted, his bruised eyes fell downwards, his body moved uneasily as he whispered:
"He's asleep in bed. I don't want to disturb him. No! We better not wake him. It wouldn't do any good."
Ren wick's face became stern at the other's abject look. What manner of house was this? he asked himself, and what manner of people?
The mother, the son, yes, even that poor child Mary, all were terrified of the one omnipotent being, the master of the house, this outrageous Brodie.
"I do not know," he said at length, enunciating his words with cold distinctness, "whether it will be desirable for me to continue the conduct of this case, but you may tell your father that I shall call to see him to-morrow."
"Is she going to be bad for long, then?" mumbled Matthew.
"For about six months at the outside."
"What a long time!" said Matt slowly. "She does all the work. How will we manage in the house without her?"
"You will have to manage," said the doctor severely. "And high time it is that you started to learn."
"What way?" asked Matthew stupidly.
"Your mother is dying of an incurable, internal cancer. She will never get out of that bed again. In six months she will be in her grave."
Matt collapsed as if the other had struck him; weakly he sat down upon the stairs. Mamma dying! Only five hours ago she had been running after him, had served him with a delicate meal cooked by her own hands, but now she lay stricken upon a bed from which she would never arise. With his head bowed upon his hands he did not see the doctor go out or hear the sound of the closing door. Prostrated by grief and remorse he looked, not forward, but backward; his mind swayed by memory, roamed through the whole period of his life; his vivid recollection strayed through all the pathways of the past. He felt the tender petting of her hands, the caress of her cheek, the touch of her lips upon his brow. He saw her coming to his room as he lay petulantly on his bed, heard her say soothingly, "Here's something nice for you, son." Her features appeared before him in every expression, coaxing, pleading, wheedling, but all bearing the same indefinable stamp of love for him. Then he saw her face finally composed in the calm, complacent rigidity of death, and in its serenity, he still observed upon the pale lips the smiling tenderness which she had always shown to him.
Alone on the stairs he broke down, and whispered to himself, again and again: