condition? Providentially for _you_ I was driving home yesterday
evening by the lower road (which is the road by the river bank),
and, drawing near to the inn here (they call it a hotel; it's
nothing but an inn), I heard the screeching of the landlady half
a mile off. A good woman enough, you will understand, as times
go; but a poor creature in any emergency. Keep still, I'm coming
to it now. Well, I went in to see if the screeching related to
anything wanted in the medical way; and there I found you and the
stranger lady in a position which I may truthfully describe as
standing in some need of improvement on the score of propriety.
Tut! tut! I speak jocosely--you were both in a dead swoon. Having
heard what the landlady had to tell me, and having, to the best
of my ability, separated history from hysterics in the course of
the woman's narrative, I found myself, as it were, placed between
two laws. The law of gallantry, you see, pointed to the lady as
the first object of my professional services, while the law of
humanity (seeing that you were still bleeding) pointed no less
imperatively to you. I am no longer a young man: I left the lady
to wait. My word! it was no light matter, Mr. Germaine, to deal
with your case, and get you carried up here out of the way. That
old wound of yours, sir, is not to be trifled with. I bid you
beware how you open it again. The next time you go out for an
evening walk and you see a lady in the water, you will do well
for your own health to leave her there. What's that I see? Are
you opening your mouth again? Do you want another sup already?"

"He wants to hear more about the lady," said my mother,
interpreting my wishes for me.

"Oh, the lady," resumed Mr. MacGlue, with the air of a man who
found no great attraction in the subject proposed to him.
"There's not much that I know of to be said about the lady. A
fine woman, no doubt. If you could strip the flesh off her bones,
you would find a splendid skeleton underneath. For, mind this!
there's no such thing as a finely made woman without a good bony
scaffolding to build her on at starting. I don't think much of
this lady--morally speaking, you will understand. If I may be
permitted to say so in your presence, ma'am, there's a man in the
background of that dramatic scene of hers on the bridge. However,
not being the man myself, I have nothing to do with that. My
business with the lady was just to set her vital machinery going
again. And, Heaven knows, she proved a heavy handful! It was even
a more obstinate case to deal with, sir, than yours. I never, in
all my experience, met with two people more unwilling to come
back to this world and its troubles than you two were. And when I
had done the business at last, when I was wellnigh swooning
myself with the work and the worry of it, guess--I give you leave
to speak for this once--guess what were the first words the, lady
said to me when she came to herself again."

I was too much excited to be able to exercise my ingenuity. "I
give it up!" I said, impatiently.

"You may well give it up," remarked Mr. MacGlue. "The first words
she addressed, sir, to the man who had dragged her
out of the very jaws of death were these: 'How dare you meddle
with me? why didn't you leave me to die?' Her exact
language--I'll take my Bible oath of it. I was so provoked that I
gave her the change back (as the saying is) in her own coin.
'There's the river handy, ma'am,' I said; 'do it again. I, for
one, won't stir a hand to save you; I promise you that.' She
looked up sharply. 'Are you the man who took me out of the
river?' she said. 'God forbid!' says I. 'I'm only the doctor who
was fool enough to meddle with you afterward.' She turned to the
landlady. 'Who took me out of the river?' she asked. The landlady
told her, and mentioned your name. 'Germaine?' she said to
herself; 'I know nobody named Germaine; I wonder whether it was
the man who spoke to me on the bridge?' 'Yes,' says the landlady;
'Mr. Germaine said he met you on the bridge.' Hearing that, she
took a little time to think; and then she asked if she could see
Mr. Germaine. 'Whoever he is,' she says, 'he has risked his life
to save me, and I ought to thank him for doing that.' 'You can't
thank him tonight,' I said; 'I've got him upstairs between life
and death, and I've sent for his mother: wait till to-morrow.'
She turned on me, looking half frightened, half angry. 'I can't
wait,' she says; 'you don't know what you have done among you in
bringing me back to life. I must leave this neighborhood; I must
be out of Perthshire to-morrow: when does the first coach
southward pass this way?' Having nothing to do with the first
coach southward, I referred her to the people of the inn. My
business (now I had done with the lady) was upstairs in this
room, to see how you were getting on. You were getting on as well
as I could wish, and your mother was at your bedside. I went home
to see what sick people might be waiting for me in the regular
way. When I came back this morning, there was the foolish
landlady with a new tale to tell 'Gone!' says she. 'Who's gone?'
says I. 'The lady,' says she, 'by the first coach this morning!'
"

"You don't mean to tell me that she has left the house?" I
exclaimed.

"Oh, but I do!" said the doctor, as positively as ever. "Ask
madam your mother here, and she'll certify it to your heart's
content. I've got other sick ones to visit, and I'm away on my
rounds. You'll see no more of the lady; and so much the better,
I'm thinking. In two hours' time I'll be back again; and if I
don't find you the worse in the interim, I'll see about having
you transported from this strange place to the snug bed that
knows you at home. Don't let him talk, ma'am, don't let him


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