all describe), and bade them leave her. Mrs.
Beauly, looking very much frightened, withdrew immediately. Mr. Macallan
advanced a step or two nearer to the bed. His wife looked at him again
in the same strange way, and cried out--half as if she was threatening
him, half as if she was entreating him--'Leave me with the nurse. Go!'
He only waited to say to me in a whisper, 'The doctor is sent for,' and
then he left the room.

"Before Mr. Gale arrived Mrs. Macallan was violently sick. What came
from her was muddy and frothy, and faintly streaked with blood. When Mr.
Gale saw it he looked very serious. I heard him say to himself, 'What
does this mean?' He did his best to relieve Mrs. Macallan, but with no
good result that I could see. After a time she seemed to suffer less.
Then more sickness came on. Then there was another intermission. Whether
she was suffering or not, I observed that her hands and feet (whenever
I touched them) remained equally cold. Also, the doctor's report of her
pulse was always the same--'very small and feeble.' I said to Mr. Gale,
'What is to be done, sir?' And Mr. Gale said to me, 'I won't take
the responsibility on myself any longer; I must have a physician from
Edinburgh.'

"The fastest horse in the stables at Gleninch was put into a dog-cart,
and the coachman drove away full speed to Edinburgh to fetch the famous
Doctor Jerome.

"While we were waiting for the physician, Mr. Macallan came into his
wife's room with Mr. Gale. Exhausted as she was, she instantly lifted
her hand and signed to him to leave her. He tried by soothing words to
persuade her to let him stay. No! She still insisted on sending him out
of her room. He seemed to feel it--at such a time, and in the presence
of the doctor. Before she was aware of him, he suddenly stepped up to
the bedside and kissed her on the forehead. She shrank from him with a
scream. Mr. Gale interfered, and led him out of the room.

"In the afternoon Doctor Jerome arrived.

"The great physician came just in time to see her seized with another
attack of sickness. He watched her attentively, without speaking a word.
In the interval when the sickness stopped, he still studied her, as it
were, in perfect silence. I thought he would never have done examining
her. When he was at last satisfied, he told me to leave him alone with
Mr. Gale. 'We will ring,' he said, 'when we want you here again.'

"It was a long time before they rang for me. The coachman was