"That's as may be, Mrs. Plume. We're often blind to our best
interests. Be seated a moment, then I'll let you tramp the soles of
your feet off, if you so desire." And so he practically pulled her
into a chair; Elise, glaring the while, stood spitefully looking on.
The antipathy was mutual.
"You've slept too little of late, Mrs. Plume," continued the doctor,
lucklessly hitting the mark with a home shot instantly resented, for
the lady was on her feet again.
"Sleep! People do nothing but sleep in this woebegone hole!" she
cried. "I've had sleep enough to last a lifetime. What I want is to
wake--wake out of this horrible nightmare! Dr. Graham, you are a
friend of Captain Wren's. What under heaven possessed him, with his
brutal strength, to assault so sick a man as Mr. Blakely? What
possible pretext could he assert?" And again she was straining at her
imprisoned hand and seeking to free herself, Graham calmly studying
her the while, as he noted the feverish pulse. Not half an hour
earlier he had been standing beside the sick bed of a fair young girl,
one sorely weighted now with grave anxieties, yet who lay patient and
uncomplaining, rarely speaking a word. They had not told the half of
the web of accusation that now enmeshed her father's feet, but what
had been revealed to her was more than enough to banish every thought
of self or suffering and to fill her fond heart with instant and
loving care for him.
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