nd
listen. Was that not a footstep? ... the step of one who might come
feeling his way... dim-eyed with regret? There were such things in life
as momentary lapses, as ungovernable impulses--as fiery contrition ...
the anguish of remorse. And yet, once more, he sat up and listened till
his ears rang.

Then, not the ghostly footsteps of a delusive hope, but a hard, human
crunching that made the boards of the verandah shake. Tossing off the
opossum-rug, which had grown unbearably heavy, he sprang to his feet;
was wide awake and at the window, staring sleep-charged into the dawn,
before a human hand had found the night-bell and a distracted voice
cried:

"Does a doctor live here? A doctor, I say ...?"

Chapter VII

The hot airless night had become the hot airless day: in the garden the
leaves on trees and shrubs drooped as under an invisible weight. All
the stale smells of the day before persisted--that of the medicaments
on the shelves, of the unwetted dust on the roads, the sickly odour of
malt from a neighbouring brewery. The blowflies buzzed about the
ceiling; on the table under the lamp a dozen or more moths lay singed
and dead. Now it was nearing six o'clock; clad in his thinnest
driving-coat, Mahony sat and watched the man who had come to fetch him
beat his horse to a lather.

"Mercy! ... have a little mercy on the poor brute," he said more than
once.

He had stood out for some time against obeying the summons, which
meant, at lowest, a ten-mile drive. Not if he were offered a hundred
pounds down, was his first impetuous refusal; for he had not seen the
inside of a bed that night. But at this he trapped an odd look in the
other's eyes, and suddenly became aware that he was still dressed as
for the ball. Besides, an equally impetuous answer was flung back at
him: he promised no hundred pounds, said the man--hadn't got it to
offer. He appealed solely to the doctor's humanity: it was a question
of saving a life--that of his only son. So here they were.

"We doctors have no business with troubles of our own," thought Mahony,
as he listened to the detailed account of an ugly accident. On the roof
of a shed the boy had missed his footing, slipped and fallen some
twenty feet, landing astride a piece of quartering. Picking himself up,
he had managed to crawl home, and at first they thought he would be
able to get through the night without medical aid. But towards two
o'clock his sufferings had grown unbearabl