Dr. Hayes' next call was upon her, and he found her
fainting upon the floor, where she had fallen in the excitement of the
shock she had experienced.
"It was a headache," she said, when questioned as to the cause of the
sudden attack; but her eyes had in them a frightened, startled look, for
which the doctor could not account.
There was something about her case which puzzled and perplexed him. "She
needed perfect quiet, but must not be left alone," he said, and so all
that night Richard, who was very wakeful, watched the light shining out
into the hall from the room next to his own, and heard occasionally a
murmur of low voices as the nurse put some question to Ethie, who
answered always in whispers, while her eyes turned furtively toward No.
102, as if fearful that its occupant would hear and know how near she
was. For three whole days her door was locked against all intruders, for
the headache and nervous excitement did not abate one whit. How could
they, when every sound from No. 102, every footfall on the floor, every
tone of Richard's voice speaking to servant or physician, quickened the
rapid beats and sent the hot blood throbbing fiercely through the temple
veins and down along the neck? At Clifton they are accustomed to every
phase of nervousness, from spasms at the creaking of a board to the
stumbling upstairs of the fireman in the early winter morning, and once
when Ethie shuddered and turned her head aside at the sound of Richard's
step, the attendant said to the physician:
"It's the gentleman's boots, I think, which make her nervous.
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