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584 THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP
served almost instantly to overcome him. He struggled for a
moment or two. "Stop—stop! you'll be better in a moment,"
she whispered. "Oh, yes! better, quite better!" She squeezed
more of the liquor from the bottle on to the handkerchief. In a
minute Hunt was quite inanimate.
Then the little pale woman leant over him, and took the pocketbook
out of his pocket, and from it the bill which bore Philip's
name. As Hunt lay in stupor before her, she now squeezed more
of the liquor over his head ; and then thrust the bill into the fire,
and saw it burn to ashes. Then she put back the pocket-book into
Hunt's breast. She said afterwards that she never should have
thought about that Chloroform, but for her brief conversation with
Dr. Goodenough that evening, regarding a case in which she had
employed the new remedy under his orders.
How long did Hunt lie in that stupor ? It seemed a whole
long night to Caroline. She said afterwards that the thought of
that act that night made her hair grow grey. Poor little head !
Indeed, she would have laid it down for Philip.
Hunt, I suppose, came to himself when the handkerchief was
withdrawn, and the fumes of the potent liquor ceased to work on
his brain. He was very much frightened and bewildered. " What
was it ? Where am I?" he asked, in a husky voice.
" It was the keys struck you in the cupboard-door when you—
you ran against it," said pale Caroline. "Look! you are all
bleeding on the head. Let me dry it."
" No ; keep off ! " cried the terrified man.
" Will you have a cab to go home ? The poor gentleman hit
himself against the cupboard-door, Mary. You remember him here
before, don't you, one night ?" And Caroline, with a shrug, pointed
out to her maid, whom she had summoned, the great square bottle
of spirits still on the table, and indicated that there lay the cause
of Hunt's bewilderment.
" Are you better now ? Will you—will you—take a little more
refreshment ?" asked Caroline.
" No !" he cried with an oath, and with glaring bloodshot eyes
he lurched towards his hat.
" Lor', mum ! whatever is it ? And this smell in the room, and
all this here heap of money and things on the table ?"
Caroline flung open her window. "It's medicine, which Dr.
Goodenough has ordered for one of his patients. I must go and see
her to-night," she said. And at midnight, looking as pale as death,
the Little Sister went to the Doctor's house, and roused him up from
his bed, and told him the story here narrated. " I offered him all
you gave me," she said, " and all I had in the world besides, and he