“For God’s sake stop,” cried Lot, “and come back here and listen!  I did not call you for nothing.  The lives and deaths of more than one are at stake; come back here!”

The doctor clamped his medicine-chest hard on the floor.  “Be quick about it, then,” said he, and sat down in a chair at Lot’s bedside.

Lot fumbled under his pillow and produced a folded paper which he handed to the doctor.  “I want you to sign this,” said he.

The doctor scowled over the paper, got out his iron-bowed spectacles, adjusted them, and read aloud: 

“I, Justinus Emmons, practising doctor of medicine, do hereby declare that the death of Lot Gordon of Ware Centre will, when it takes place, be due to phthisis, and phthisis alone, and not in any degree, however small, to the wound inflicted by himself some months since.  And, furthermore, I declare that his death will follow from the natural progress of the disease of phthisis, which has not in any respect been accelerated by his self-inflicted wound.”

“You want me to sign this, do you?” said the doctor.

“I will call in Margaret Bean and her husband for witnesses,” said Lot.

“You think I am going to sign this?”

“I want it in addition to the certificate of the cause of death which you will have to make out after my decease.  ’Tis an unnecessary formality, but I would have it so,” Lot returned.

The doctor dashed the paper on the bed.  “If you think I am going to subscribe to a lie for you, or any other man, you’re mistaken,” he cried.  “It was enough for me to hold my tongue when you made that fool statement of yours that wouldn’t have deceived a man with the brains of an ox.”

“My death will be due to phthisis; my left lung is almost consumed, and you know it,” affirmed Lot.

“And I tell you,” said the doctor, stoutly, “that your death from phthisis might not have occurred for ten years to come.  Does a tree die because half its boughs are gone?  When you die, you die of that wound.  The evil was greater than I thought at the time.  It takes less to kill a diseased man than a sound one.”

“Then my death will be due to my disease and not to my wound, if it would not have killed a sound man,” cried Lot, eagerly.

“I tell you, your death will be due to that wound that Madelon Hautville, with maybe your cousin at her back, gave you.”

Lot’s face glared white at the doctor.  “I gave the wound to myself!”

The doctor laughed.

“I tell you, I gave the wound myself!”

“Take your wound into court, and see what they say.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll give any man who will stab himself in just the same place, with the knife held in just the same way, every dollar I have in the world.”

“You can’t prove it.”

“I can prove it.”

“I can do away with your proof,” said Lot, in a strange voice.  The doctor looked at him sharply.