The Result

This, then, was the errand of Farmer Green, and with his usual
bluntness, he said to the recreant doctor, who chanced to be at home: "Wall, you nigh about killed our little Madge t'other day, when you
refused the stifficut, and now we want you to cure her."

The doctor looked up in surprise, but Farmer Green soon explained his
meaning, making out a most aggravated case, and representing Maddy as
wild with delirium.

"Keeps talkin' about the big books, the Latin and the Hebrew, and even
the Catechism, as if such like was 'lowed in our school. I s'pose you
didn't know no better; but if Maddy dies, you'll have it to answer
for, I reckon."

The doctor did not try to excuse himself, but hastily took down the
medicines he thought he might need, and stowed them carefully away. He
had expected to hear from that examination, but not in this way, and
rather nervously he made some inquiries, as to how long she had been
ill, and so forth.

Maddy's case lost nothing by Mr. Green's account, and by the time the
doctor's horse was ready, and he on his way to the cottage, he had
arrived at the conclusion that of all the villainous men outside the
walls of the State's prison, he was the most villainous, and Guy
Remington next.

What a cozy little chamber it was where Maddy lay, just such a room as
a girl like her might be supposed to occupy, and the bachelor doctor
felt like treading upon forbidden ground as he entered the room so
rife with girlish habits, from the fairy slippers hung on a peg, to
the fanciful little workbox made of cones and acorns. Maddy was
asleep, and sitting down beside her, he asked that the shawl which had
been pinned across the window might be removed so that he could see
her, and thus judge better of her condition. They took the shawl away,
and the sunlight came streaming in, disclosing to the doctor's view
the face never before seen distinctly, or thought about, if seen. It
was ghastly pale, save where the hot blood seemed bursting through the
cheeks, while the beautiful brown hair was brushed back from the brow
where the veins were swollen and full. The lips were slightly apart,
and the hot breath came in quick, panting gasps, while occasionally a
faint moan escaped them, and once the doctor heard, or thought he
heard, the sound of his own name. One little dimpled hand lay upon the
bedspread, but the doctor did not touch it. Ordinarily he would have
grasped it as readily as if it had been a piece of marble, but the
sight of Maddy, lying there so sick, and the fearing he had helped to
bring her where she was, awoke to life a curious state of feeling with
regard to her, making him almost as nervous as on the day when she
appeared before him as candidate No. 1.