Taking the little girl upon his knee, he began to examine her, feeling her pulse and looking at her tongue.  For a while he seemed puzzled, then Jane saw him take a little magnifying glass from his pocket and by the help of it search the skin of the patient’s forehead, especially just at the roots of the hair.  After this he looked at the neck and wrists, then set the child down on the couch, waving Jane back when she advanced to take it, and asked the mother, who had just entered the room with the lemonade, two or three short, quick questions.

Next he turned to Jane and said—­

“I don’t want to frighten you, but you will be as well out of this.  It’s lucky for you,” he added with a little smile, “that when you were born it wasn’t the fashion for doctors to be anti-vaccinationists, for, unless I am much mistaken, that child has got smallpox.”

“Smallpox!” said Jane, then added aggressively, “Well, now we shall see whose theory is right, for, as you saw, I was nursing her, and I have never been vaccinated in my life.  My father would not allow it, and I have been told that it won him his first election.”

Ernest Merchison heard, and for a moment his face became like that of a man in a fit.

“The wicked——­” he began, and stopped himself by biting his lips till the blood came.  Recovering his calm with an effort, he turned to Jane and said in a hoarse voice:—­

“There is still a chance; it may be in time; yes, I am almost sure that I can save you.”  Then he plunged his hand into his breast pocket and drew out a little case of instruments.  “Be so good as to bare your left arm,” he said; “fortunately, I have the stuff with me.”

“What for?” she asked.

“To be vaccinated.”

“Are you mad, Ernest?” she said.  “You know who I am and how I have been brought up; how, then, can you suppose that I would allow you to put that poison into my veins?”

“Look here, Jane, there isn’t much time for argument, but just listen to me for one minute.  You know I am a pretty good doctor, don’t you? for I have that reputation, haven’t I? and I am sure that you believe in me.  Well, now, just on this one point and for this one occasion I am going to ask you to give up your own opinion and to suppose that in this matter I am right and your father is wrong.  I will go farther, and say that if any harm comes to you from this vaccination beyond the inconvenience of a swollen arm, you may consider all that has been between us as nothing and never speak to me again.”

“That’s not the point,” she answered.  “If you vaccinated me and my arm fell off in consequence I shouldn’t care for you a bit the less, because I should know that you were the victim of a foolish superstition, and believed what you were doing to be right.  No, Ernest, it is of no use; I can assure you that I know a great deal more about this subject than you do.  I have read all the papers and statistics and heard the cleverest men in England lecture upon it, and nothing, nothing, nothing will ever induce me to submit to that filthy, that revolting operation.”