"Who are you, and what have you come for?" screamed Pringle. "Get out of this, or it will be worse for you! I'll have no thieving quacks here."
"Then the sooner you have him removed the better. He must be either drunk or mad."
Jessie took her father by the shoulders and pressed him down by main force on to the sofa.
"Speak another word at your peril," she said sternly. "Disturb this gentleman again, and as sure as I am what I am, I'll have you locked up in there--in there, do you understand?" and she pointed in the direction of the strong-room.
There was something in his daughter's face that cowed him--that frightened him even. He had never seen such an expression on any other face. He sat down without a word.
The doctor was down on one knee by this time, examining the unconscious man.
"How did he come by this terrible wound on his head?" he asked presently; "and why has he been allowed to sink so low? Some one ought to have been called in two days ago."
"It's only about two days since he got home," said the woman, "and he brought the wound with him. How he came by it nobody knows but himself. Then, he was accidentally"--with a glance at Her father--"shut up in the room where he keeps his books and things, and couldn't help himself, and there I found him about two o'clock this morning."
"Was he conscious when you found him? Did he know you?"
"Why did you not send for medical assistance as soon as you found him?"
"Because he wouldn't let me--he wouldn't hear of it."
"More fool he," said the doctor brusquely. "What did you give him to eat or drink?"
"All that I could persuade him to take was a little brandy and water."
"Well, I can do nothing for him till he wakes," said the doctor as he rose to his feet. "I may tell you that he appears, so far as I can judge at present, to be in about as bad a way as it is possible for a man to be. I don't think it advisable to disturb him, and this sleep may do him good. I will call again about ten o'clock. Should he awake before then send me word, and till I arrive keep on giving him a teaspoonful of brandy every few minutes." With that the doctor went.
Jessie was kneeling by Van Duren's head, and she never moved to let the doctor out. Pringle, with his red, watery eyes, and doubled-up back, still sat on the sofa, his elbows resting on his knees, and his chin in the palms of his hands, looking like a ghoul waiting for its prey. Suddenly his daughter turned her head, and their eyes met.