was that war in South
America--and he certainly didn't get proper care when the mischief was
done. Probably things were managed in a very rough-and-ready fashion
out there; he's lucky to be alive at all. However, there's a chronic
tendency to inflammation, and any trifle may bring on an attack----"

"Is that dangerous?"

"N-no; the chief danger in a case of that kind is of the patient getting
desperate and taking a dose of arsenic."

"It is very painful, of course?"

"It's simply horrible; I don't know how he manages to bear it. I was
obliged to stupefy him with opium in the night--a thing I hate to do
with a nervous patient; but I had to stop it somehow."

"He is nervous, I should think."

"Very, but splendidly plucky. As long as he was not actually
light-headed with the pain last night, his coolness was quite wonderful.
But I had an awful job with him towards the end. How long do you suppose
this thing has been going on? Just five nights; and not a soul within
call except that stupid landlady, who wouldn't wake if the house tumbled
down, and would be no use if she did."

"But what about the ballet-girl?"

"Yes; isn't that a curious thing? He won't let her come near him. He
has a morbid horror of her. Altogether, he's one of the most
incomprehensible creatures I ever met--a perfect mass of
contradictions."

He took out his watch and looked at it with a preoccupied face. "I shall
be late at the hospital; but it can't be helped. The junior will have
to begin without me for once. I wish I had known of all this before--it
ought not to have been let go on that way night after night."

"But why on earth didn't he send to say he was ill?" Martini
interrupted. "He might have guessed we shouldn't have left him stranded
in that fashion."

"I wish, doctor," said Gemma, "that you had sent for one of us last
night, instead of wearing yourself out like this."

"My dear lady, I wanted to send round to Galli; but Rivarez got so
frantic at the suggestion that I didn't dare attempt it. When I asked
him whether there was anyone else he would like fetched, he looked at me
for a minute, as if he were scared out of his wits, and then put up
both hands to his eyes and said: 'Don't tell them; they will laugh!'
He seemed quite possessed with some fancy about people laughing at
something. I couldn't make out what; he kept talking Spanish; but
patients do say the oddest things sometimes."

"Who is with him now?" asked Gemma.