IT was piteous to see and hear. The blood would not stop; it spurted no longer, but it flowed alarmingly. Vizard sent Harris off in his own fly for a doctor, to save time. He called for ice. He cried out in agony to his servants, "Can none of you think of anything? There--that hat. Here, you women; tear me the nap off with your fingers. My God! what is to be done? She'll bleed to death!" And he held her to his breast, and almost moaned with pity over her, as he pressed the cold sponge to her wound--in vain; for still the red blood would flow.
Wheels ground the gravel. Servants flew to the door, crying, "The doctor!
the doctor!"
As if he could have been fetched in five minutes from three miles off.
Yet it was a doctor. Harris had met Miss Gale walking quietly down from Hillstoke. He had told her in a few hurried words, and brought her as fast as the horses could go.
She glided in swiftly, keen, but self-possessed, and took it all in directly.
Vizard saw her, and cried, "Ah! Help!--she is bleeding to death!""She shall not," said Rhoda. Then to one footman, "Bring a footstool, _you;"_ to another, _"You_ bring me a cork;" to Vizard, _"You_ hold her toward me so. Now sponge the wound."This done, she pinched the lips of the wound together with her neat, strong fingers. "See what I do," she said to Vizard. "You will have to do it, while I-- Ah, the stool! Now lay her head on that; the other side, man. Now, sir, compress the wound as I did, vigorously. Hold the cork, _you,_ till I want it."She took out of her pocket some adhesive plaster, and flakes of some strong styptic, and a piece of elastic. "Now," said she to Vizard, "give me a little opening in the middle to plaster these strips across the wound." He did so. Then in a moment she passed the elastic under the sufferer's head, drew it over with the styptic between her finger and thumb, and crack! the styptic was tight on the compressed wound. She forced in more styptic, increasing the pressure, then she whipped out a sort of surgical housewife, and with some cutting instrument reduced the cork, then cut it convex, and fastened it on the styptic by another elastic. There was no flutter, yet it was all done in fifty seconds.
"There," said she, "she will bleed no more, to speak of. Now seat her upright. Why! I have seen her before. This is--sir, you can send the men away."'
"Yes; and, Harris, pack up Mr. Severne's things, and bring them down here this moment."The male servants retired, the women held aloof. Fanny Dover came forward, pale and trembling, and helped to place Ina Klosking in the hall porter's chair. She was insensible still, but moaned faintly.
Her moans were echoed: all eyes turned. It was Zoe, seated apart, all bowed and broken--ghastly pale, and glaring straight before her.
"Poor girl!" said Vizard. "We forgot her. It is her heart that bleeds.
Where is the scoundrel, that I may kill him?" and he rushed out at the door to look for him. The man's life would not have been worth much if Squire Vizard could have found him then.
But he soon came back to his wretched home, and eyed the dismal scene, and the havoc one man had made--the marble floor all stained with blood--Ina Klosking supported in a chair, white, and faintly moaning--Zoe still crushed and glaring at vacancy, and Fanny sobbing round her with pity and terror; for she knew there must be worse to come than this wild stupor.
"Take her to her room, Fanny dear," said Vizard, in a hurried, faltering voice, "and don't leave her. Rosa, help Miss Dover. Do not leave her alone, night nor day." Then to Miss Gale, "She will live? Tell me she will live.""I hope so," said Rhoda Gale. "Oh, the blow will not kill her, nor yet the loss of blood. But I fear there will be distress of mind added to the bodily shock. And such a noble face! My own heart bleeds for her. Oh, sir, do not send her away to strangers! Let me take her up to the farm.