“Dr. Ritchie should see him immediately.  He is in the smoking-room.  If you call him out, it will excite less remark than if I were to do it.  Don’t let Winston guess why you want him,” were her directions to her aunt, uttered quickly, but distinctly.

“Yon will not stay here!  At least, go into the hall!  What will the doctor think?”

“I shall remain where I am.  The poor creature is too far gone to presume upon my condescension,” with a faint sarcastic emphasis.

At Mrs. Sutton’s return with the physician, she perceived that her niece had not awaited her coming in sentimental idleness.  A thick woollen coverlet was wrapped about the prostrate figure, and Mabel, upon her knees on the dusty hearth, was applying the candle to a heap of waste paper and bits of board she had ferreted out in closets and cuddy-holes.  It caught and blazed up hurriedly in season to facilitate the doctor’s examination of the patient, thrown so oddly upon his care.  Mrs. Sutton had not neglected, in her haste, to procure a warm shawl from her room, and she folded it about the girl’s shoulders, whispering an entreaty that she would go to bed, and leave the man to her management and Dr. Ritchie.

Mabel waved her off impatiently.

“Presently! when I hear how he is!” moving toward the comfortless couch.

The physician looked around at the rustle of her dress, his pleasant face perturbed, and perhaps remorseful.

“This is a bad business!  I wish I had examined him when he was brought in.  There would have been more hope of doing something for him then.  But, to tell the truth, I was one of the five or six prudent fellows who stayed upon the piazza, and witnessed the capture from a distance.  I had no idea of the man’s real situation.  Mrs. Sutton! can I have brandy, hot water, and mustard at once!  Miss Mabel! may I trouble you to call your brother?  He ought to be advised of this unforeseen turn of affairs.”

His emissaries were prompt.  In less than ten minutes, all the appliances the household could furnish for the restoration of the failing life were at his command.  An immense fire roared in the long-disused chimney; warm blankets, bottles of hot water and mustard-poultices were prepared by a corps of officious servants; the master of the mansion, with three or four friends at his heels, and a half-smoked cigar in his hand, had looked in for a moment, to hope that Dr. Ritchie would not hesitate to order whatever was needed, and to predict a favorable result as the meed of his skill.

Half an hour after her brother’s visit, Mabel tapped at the door to inquire how the patient was, and whether she could be of use in any way.  She still wore her evening dress, and the fire of excitement had not gone out in her eyes and complexion.

“Don’t sit up longer,” said the doctor, with the authority of an old friend.  “It will not benefit your protege for you to have a headache, pale cheeks, and heavy eyes to-morrow, while it will render others, whose claims upon you are stronger, very miserable.”