Juggernaut by Alice Campbell

Author:Alice Campbell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2022-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXIII

It took her a moment to collect her thoughts.

“Oh, the needle! Did I have it?”

“Certainly. I handed it to you as I usually do.”

She rubbed her forehead in the effort to recall.

“Did you?” she murmured in perplexity. “I don’t remember.”

“But I remember. I want to replace it. What have you done with it?”

Her memory was a complete void; the business of Roger’s thumb had routed everything else.

“Are you quite sure—” she faltered.

“Sure!” he repeated sharply, and with a gesture of annoyance. “I tell you you had it in your hand when you bolted out of the room. There is no question about it.”

“Then I must have laid it down somewhere. I’ll look for it in just a moment.”

She was washing the basin at the bath.

“You’ll look now.”

She glanced quickly at him, amazed at his peremptory manner. Never before had any doctor spoken to her in that fashion. Besides, how could he be angry over such a trifle?

“Certainly, doctor.”

She spoke calmly, hiding her wounded dignity, and without more ado hastened back to the boudoir, now empty. Where could she have put the wretched thing? It was true she had had it in her hand, she recollected that much now, but nothing more. She made a thorough search, disagreeably aware that the doctor kept coming to the doorway and watching her.

“There’s no sign of it here, doctor. I’ll look in my bedroom. I went there to get my first-aid.”

“Do so.”

She would rather not have done so when addressed in that manner. The blood rushed to her cheeks, but she stifled her resentment and continued to search in every likely and unlikely place. It couldn’t be lost, that was impossible. Yet in ten minutes she returned empty-handed.

“I’m so sorry, doctor. I’ve looked everywhere. It’s simply disappeared.”

“Disappeared!”

There was no describing the sudden look of rage with which he turned on her. His face grew a mottled red, his clenched fist made an abortive gesture as though he would have liked to strike her.

“Disappeared!” he reiterated. “Have you the face to stand there and confess to such a piece of flagrant carelessness?”

She bit her lip.

“I suppose it was careless of me, doctor, but I didn’t think—”

“That’s the whole trouble; you never think—except about frivolity, men, anything but your work! There is no excuse for your conduct—none.”

The attack was so unwarranted that, although she felt her face burn with indignation, she was able to regard him with sudden calm detachment, noting curiously his twitching mouth, his laboured breathing. He seemed in a few minutes to have become quite a different person. She had never seen him violently angry before.

“I was only going to say that although I was no doubt to blame, I certainly had no idea that you could possibly consider the matter so important.”

He seemed suddenly to rein himself in for a second or two, during which he glared at her fixedly. Then he burst out again with scathing venom, the more concentrated because he kept his voice low.

“You didn’t consider it important! That’s what you mean to say.

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