the bell. He heard what Mrs. Macallan said to me about the composing draught, and made no remark upon it. It seemed to me that he was alarmed at his wife's faintness. I suggested that she should take a little wine, or brandy and water. She answered that she could swallow nothing so strong as wine or brandy, having a burning pain in her stomach already. I put my hand on her stomach—quite lightly. She screamed when I touched her.
'This symptom alarmed us. We went to the village for the medical man who had attended Mrs. Macallan during her illness: one Mr. Gale.
'The doctor seemed no better able to account for the change for the worse in his patient than we were. Hearing her complain of thirst, he gave her some milk. Not long after taking it she was sick. The sickness appeared to relieve her. She soon grew drowsy and slumbered. Mr. Gale left us, with strict injunctions to send for him instantly if she was taken ill again.
'Nothing of the sort happened; no change took place for the next three hours or more. She roused up toward half-past nine and inquired about her husband. I informed her that he had returned to his own room, and asked if I should send for him. She said 'No.' I asked next if she would like anything to eat or drink. She said 'No' again, in rather a vacant, stupefied way, and then told me to go downstairs and get my breakfast. On my way down I met the housekeeper. She invited me to breakfast with her in her room, instead of in the servants' hall as usual. I remained with the housekeeper but a short time—certainly not more than half an hour.
'Coming upstairs again, I met the under-housemaid sweeping on one of the landings.
'The girl informed me that Mrs. Macallan had taken a cup of tea during my absence in the housekeeper's room. Mr. Macallan's valet had ordered the tea for his mistress by his master's directions. The under-housemaid made it, and took it upstairs herself to Mrs. Macallan's room. Her master, she said, opened the door when she knocked, and took the tea-cup from her with his own hand. He opened the door widely enough for her to see into the bedroom, and to notice that nobody was with Mrs. Macallan but himself.
'After a little talk with the under-housemaid, I returned to the bedroom. No one was there. Mrs. Macallan was lying perfectly quiet, with her face turned away from me on the pillow. Approaching the bedside, I kicked against something on the floor. It was a broken tea-cup. I said to Mrs. Macallan, 'How comes the tea-cup to be broken, ma'am?' She answered, without turning toward me, in an odd, muffled kind of voice, 'I dropped it.' 'Before you drank your tea, ma'am?' I asked. 'No,' she said; 'in handing the cup back to Mr. Macallan, after I had done.' I had put my question, wishing to know, in case she had spilled the tea when she dropped the cup, whether it would be necessary to get her any more. I am quite sure I remember correctly my question and her answer. I inquired next if she had been long alone. She said, shortly, 'Yes; I have been trying to sleep.' I said, 'Do you feel pretty comfortable?' She answered, 'Yes,' again. All this time she still kept her face sulkily turned from me toward the wall. Stooping over her to arrange the bedclothes, I looked toward her table. The writing materials which were always kept on it were disturbed, and there was wet ink on one of the pens. I said, 'Surely you haven't been writing, ma'am?' 'Why not?' she said; 'I couldn't sleep.' 'Another poem?' I asked. She laughed to herself—a bitter, short laugh. 'Yes,' she said, 'another poem.' 'That's good,' I said; 'it looks as if you were getting quite like yourself again. We shan't want the doctor any more to-day.' She made no answer to this, except an impatient sign with her hand. I didn't understand the sign. Upon that she spoke again, and crossly enough, too—'I want to be alone; leave me.'
'I had no choice but to do as I was told. To the best of my observation, there was nothing the matter with her, and nothing for the nurse to do. I put the bell-rope within reach of her hand, and I went downstairs again.
'Half an hour more, as well as I can guess it, passed. I kept within hearing of the bell; but it never rang. I was not quite at my ease—without exactly knowing why. That odd, muffled voice in which she had spoken to me hung on my mind, as it were. I was not quite satisfied about leaving her alone for too long a time together—and then, again, I was unwilling to risk throwing her into one of her fits of passion by going back before she rang for me. It ended in my venturing into the room on the ground-floor called the Morning-Room, to consult Mr. Macallan. He was usually to be found there in the forenoon of the day.
'On this occasion, however, when I looked into the Morning-Room it was empty.
'At the same moment I heard the master's voice on the terrace outside. I went out, and found him speaking to one Mr. Dexter, an old friend of his, and (like Mrs. Beauly) a guest staying in the house. Mr. Dexter was sitting at the window of his room upstairs (he was a cripple, and could only move himself about in a chair on wheels), and Mr. Macallan was speaking to him from the terrace below.
''Dexter!' I heard Mr. Macallan say. 'Where is Mrs. Beauly? Have you seen anything of her?'
'Mr. Dexter answered, in his quick, off-hand way of speaking, 'Not I. I know nothing about her.'
'Then I advanced, and, begging pardon for intruding, I mentioned to Mr. Macallan the difficulty I was in about going back or not to his wife's room without waiting until she rang for me. Before he could advise me in the matter, the footman made his appearance and informed me that Mrs. Macallan's bell was then ringing—and ringing violently.
'It was then close on eleven o'clock. As fast as I could mount the stairs I hastened back to the bedroom.
'Before I opened the door I heard Mrs. Macallan groaning. She was in dreadful pain; feeling a burning heat in the stomach and in the throat, together with the same sickness which had troubled her in the early morning. Though no doctor, I could see in her face that this second attack was of a far more serious nature than the first. After ringing the bell for a messenger to send to Mr. Macallan, I ran to the door to see if any of the servants happened to be within call.
'The only person I saw in the corridor was Mrs. Beauly. She was on her way from her own room, she said, to inquire after Mrs. Macallan's health. I said to her, 'Mrs. Macallan is seriously ill again, ma'am. Would you please tell Mr. Macallan, and send for the doctor?' She ran downstairs at once to do as I told her.
'I had not been long back at the bedside when Mr. Macallan and Mrs. Beauly both came in together. Mrs. Macallan cast a strange look on them (a look I cannot at all describe), and bade them leave her. Mrs. Beauly, looking very much frightened, withdrew immediately. Mr. Macallan advanced a step or two nearer to the bed. His wife looked at him again in the same strange way, and cried out—half as if she was threatening him, half as if she was entreating him—'Leave me with the nurse. Go!' He only waited to say to me in a whisper, 'The doctor is sent for,' and then he left the room.
'Before Mr. Gale arrived Mrs. Macallan was violently sick. What came from her was muddy and frothy, and faintly streaked with blood. When Mr. Gale saw it he looked very serious. I heard him say to himself, 'What does this mean?' He did his best to relieve Mrs. Macallan, but with no good result that I could see. After a time she seemed to suffer less. Then more sickness came on. Then there was another intermission. Whether she was suffering or not, I observed that her hands and feet (whenever I touched them) remained equally cold. Also, the doctor's report of her pulse was always the same—'very small and feeble.' I said to Mr. Gale, 'What is to be done, sir?' And Mr. Gale said to me, 'I won't take the responsibility on myself any longer; I must have a physician from Edinburgh.'
