* * * * *
That night! what a night it was! of fingers shivering with haste, of
harum-scarum quests and searches, of groans, and piteous appeals to God.
For there were no surgical instruments, lint, anaesthetics, nor
antiseptics that I knew of in the Chateau; and though I knew of a house
in Montreux where I could find them, the distance was quite infinite,
and the time an eternity in which to leave her all alone, bleeding to
death; and, to my horror, I remembered that there was barely enough
petrol in the motor, and the store usually kept in the house exhausted.
However, I did it, leaving her there unconscious on her bed: but _how_ I
did it, and lived sane afterwards, that is another matter.
If I had not been a medical man, she must, I think, have died: for the
bullet had broken the left fifth rib, had been deflected, and I found
it buried in the upper part of the abdominal wall. I did not go from her
bed-side: I did not sleep, though I nodded and staggered: for all things
were nothing to me, but her: and for a frightfully long time she
remained comatose.
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