Page:Jane Mander--The Strange Attraction.pdf/119

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The Strange Attraction
107

She looked at him, puzzling about in her memory.

“Well, how do you feel?”

“Feel?” She shook herself. “What has happened to me?” Then she looked at him in amazement as if she did remember something. “What is it, doctor? I feel stupid, very heavy in my head. Aren’t I all right?”

“Quite,” he said, in his even manner. “But you had a headache last night, do you remember? In the office?”

She struggled to clear the fog in her mind. “Why, yes, I had. I remember now.” Her eyes widened again. And he saw a tense enquiry in them.

“What do you remember?” he asked.

She hesitated. “Why, I—I just had a headache. But it was very bad. I do get them very bad. Did I try to come home and faint, or what?”

“H’m!” he thought to himself. “You’re on the defensive for him already.”

“No,” he went on aloud, “you didn’t faint. You remember that Barrington went into the office? Well, he gave you morphia in mistake for aspirin, one and a quarter grains, a nice little dose.”

“Oh, heavens! Well, please don’t blame him. It hasn’t done me any harm. I do hope nobody knows.”

Something like a smile gathered at the back of the doctor’s sepulchral eyes. “Nobody who will ever mention it, my dear young lady, only Mac and myself. We keep the secrets of this town. Now presently, when Father Ryan goes down to breakfast, Barrington will slip in here to tell you about it. I’ll see there is nobody around. You can get up when he has gone. Drink all the strong coffee you can for breakfast and eat plainly. You’ll feel stupid perhaps all day. But you’re all right now.”

He stood up as he finished, and with a laconic nod he went quietly out.