asked humbly. "I've said my
prayers, sir, and I've had a good cry--and my head's easier now."

Mr. Keller spoke to him more gently than usual. "You had better not
disturb your mistress before the doctor comes."

"May I wait outside her door, sir? I promise to be very quiet."

Mr. Keller consented by a sign. Jack took off his shoes, and noiselessly
ascended the stairs. Before he reached the first landing, he turned and
looked back into the hall. "Mind this!" he announced very earnestly; "I
say she won't die--_I_ say that!"

He went on up the stairs. For the first time Mr. Keller began to pity the
harmless little man whom he had hitherto disliked. "Poor wretch!" he said
to himself, as he paced up and down the hall, "what will become of him,
if she does die?"

In ten minutes more, Doctor Dormann arrived at the house.

His face showed that he thought badly of the case, as soon as he looked
at Mrs. Wagner. He examined her, and made all the necessary inquiries,
with the unremitting attention to details which was part of his
professional character. One of his questions could only be answered
generally. Having declared his opinion that the malady was paralysis, and
that some of the symptoms were far from being common in his medical
experience, he inquired if Mrs. Wagner had suffered from any previous
attack of the disease. Mr. Keller could only reply that he had known her
from the time of her marriage, and that he had never (in the course of a
long and intimate correspondence with her husband) heard of her having
suffered from serious illness of any kind. Doctor Dormann looked at his
patient narrowly, and looked back again at Mr. Keller with unconcealed
surprise.

"At her age," he said, "I have never seen any first attack of paralysis
so complicated and so serious as this."

"Is there danger?" Mr. Keller asked in a whisper.

"She is not an old woman," the doctor answered; "there is always hope.
The practice in these cases generally is to bleed. In this case, the
surface of the body is cold; the heart's action is feeble--I don't like
to try bleeding, if I can possibly avoid it."

After some further consideration, he directed a system of treatment
which, in some respects, anticipated the practice of a later and wiser
time. Having looked at the women assembled round the bed--and especially
at Madame Fontaine--he said he would provide a competent nurse, and would
return to see the effect of the remedies in two hours.