lse, and managed to get Ferriss--still in his quiet,
muttering delirium--to drink a glass of peptonised milk. She
administered the quinine, reading the label, as was her custom, three
times, once as she took it up, again as she measured the dose, and a
last time as she returned the bottle to its place. Everything she did,
every minute change in Ferriss's condition, she entered upon a chart, so
that in the morning when Dr. Pitts should relieve her he could grasp the
situation at a glance.
The night passed without any but the expected variations of the pulse
and temperature, though toward daylight Lloyd could fancy that Ferriss,
for a few moments, came out of his delirium and was conscious of his
surroundings. For a few seconds his eyes seemed to regain something of
their intelligence, and his glance moved curiously about the room. But
Lloyd, sitting near the foot-board of the bed, turned her head from
him. It was not expedient that Ferriss should recognise her now.
Lloyd could not but commend the wisdom of bringing Ferriss to Dr.
Pitts's own house in so quiet a place as Medford. The doctor risked
nothing. He was without a family, the only other occupants of the house
being the housekeeper and cook. On more than one occasion, when an
interesting case needed constant watching, Pitts had used his house as a
sanatorium. Quiet as the little village itself was, the house was
removed some little distance from its outskirts. The air was fine and
pure. The stillness, the calm, the unbroken repose, was almost
Sabbath-like. In the early watches of the night, just at the turn of the
dawn, Lloyd heard the faint rumble of a passing train at the station
nearly five miles away. For hours that and the prolonged stridulating of
the crickets were the only sounds. Then at last, while it was yet dark,
a faint chittering of waking birds began from under the eaves and from
the apple-trees in the yard about the house. Lloyd went to the window,
and, drawing aside the curtains, stood there for a moment looking out.
She could see part of the road leading to the town, and, in the
distance, the edge of the town itself, a few well-kept country
residences of suburban dwellers of the City, and, farther on, a large,
rectangular, brick building with cupola and flagstaff, perhaps the
public school or the bank or the Odd Fellows' Hall. Nearer by were
fields and corners of pasture land, with here and there the formless
shapes of drowsing cows. One of the
|