LITMIR.BIZ

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066246969

Table of Contents

       I. NO. THIRTEEN, WARD THIRTEEN.

       II. HADLEY’S CAVE.

       III. THE YOUNG HEIRESS.

       IV. DR. IZARD.

       V. NOCTURNAL WANDERINGS.

       VI. THE PORTRAIT.

       VII. WHAT THE STROKE OF A BELL CAN DO.

       VIII. THE HOUSE ON THE HILL.

       IX. ASK DR. IZARD.

       X. AN INCREDIBLE OCCURRENCE.

       XI. FACE TO FACE.

       XII. AT HOME.

       XIII. A TEST.

       XIV. GRACE.

       XV. THE SMALL, SLIGHT MAN.

       XVI. THE LETTER.

       XVII. MIDNIGHT AT THE OLD IZARD PLACE.

       XVIII. A DECISION.

       XIX. TO-MORROW.

       XX. DR. IZARD’S LAST DAY IN HAMILTON.

      DOCTOR IZARD.

      PART I.

      A MIDNIGHT VISITANT.

I.

       NO. THIRTEEN, WARD THIRTEEN.

       Table of Contents

      IT was after midnight. Quiet had settled over the hospital, and in Ward 13 there was no sound and scarcely a movement. The nurse, a strong and beautiful figure, had fallen into a reverie, and the two patients, which were all the ward contained, lay in a sleep so deep that it seemed to foreshadow the death which was hovering over them both.

      They were both men. The one on the right of the nurse was middle-aged; the one on the left somewhat older. Both were gaunt, both were hollow-eyed, both had been given up by the doctors and attendants. Yet there was one point of difference between them. He on the left, the older of the two, had an incurable complaint for which no remedy was possible, while he on the right, though seemingly as ill as his fellow, was less seriously affected, and stood some chance of being saved if only he would arouse from his apathy and exert his will toward living. But nothing had as yet been found to interest him, and he seemed likely to die from sheer inanition. It is through this man’s eyes that we must observe the scene which presently took place in this quiet room.

      He had been lying, as I have said, in a dreamless sleep, when something—he never knew what—made him conscious of himself and partially awake to his surroundings. He found himself listening, but there was no sound; and his eyes, which he had not unclosed for hours, slowly opened, and through the shadows which encompassed him broke a dim vision of the silent ward and the sitting figure of the weary nurse. It was an accustomed sight, and his eyes were softly re-closing when a sudden movement on the part of the nurse roused him again to something like interest, and though his apathy was yet too great for him to make a movement or utter a sound, he perceived, though with dim eyes at first, that the door at the other end of the ward had slowly opened, and that two men were advancing down the room to the place where the nurse stood waiting in evident surprise to greet them. One was the hospital doctor, and on him the sick man cast but a single glance; but the person with him was a stranger, and upon him the attention of the silent watcher became presently concentrated, for his appearance was singular and his errand one of evident mystery.

      There

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