A few more struggles, somewhat less violent, and then the face, from
purple, began to whiten, the eyeballs fixed; the pulse went down; the
man lay still.
"Oh, my God!" cried Rhoda Somerset. "He is dying! To the nearest
doctor! There's one three doors off. No bonnet! It's life and death
this moment. Fly!"
Polly obeyed, and Doctor Andrews was actually in the room within five
minutes.
He looked grave, and kneeled down by the patient, and felt his pulse
anxiously.
Miss Somerset sat down, and, being from the country, though she did not
look it, began to weep bitterly, and rock herself in rustic fashion.
The doctor questioned her kindly, and she told him, between her sobs,
how Sir Charles had been taken.
The doctor, however, instead of being alarmed by those frightful
symptoms she related, took a more cheerful view directly. "Then do not
alarm yourself unnecessarily," he said. "It was only an epileptic fit."
"Only!" sobbed Miss Somerset. "Oh, if you had seen him! And he lies
like death."
"Yes," said Dr. Andrews; "a severe epileptic fit is really a terrible
thing to look at; but it is not dangerous in proportion. Is he used to
have them?"
"Oh, no, doctor--never had one before."
Here she was mistaken, I think.
"You must keep him quiet; and give him a moderate stimulant as soon as
he can swallow comfortably; the quietest room in the house; and don't
let him be hungry, night or day.
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