He was still in his shirt, and bareheaded; but as he spoke one of
several onlookers, whom the clatter of steel had drawn to the spot,
brought his coat and waistcoat, and held them while he put them on.
Another handed his hat and wig, a third brought his shoes and knelt and
buckled them; a fourth his kerchief. All these services he accepted
freely, and was unconscious of them--as unconscious as he was of the
eager deference, the morbid interest, with which they waited on him,
eyed him, and stared at him. His own thoughts, eyes, attention, were
fixed on the group about the fallen man; and when the elder surgeon
glanced over his shoulder, as wanting help, he strode to them.

'If we had a chair here, and could move him at once,' the smug gentleman
whispered, 'I think we might do.'

'I have a chair. It is at the gate,' his colleague answered.

'Have you? A good thought of yours!'

'The credit should lie--with my employer,' the younger man answered in a
low voice. 'It was his thought; here it comes. Sir George, will you be
good enough--' But then, seeing the baronet's look of mute anxiety, he
broke off. 'It is dangerous, but there is hope--fair hope,' he answered.
'Do you, my dear sir, go to your inn, and I will send thither when he is
safely housed. You can do no good here, and your presence may excite him
when he recovers from the swoon.'

Sir George, seeing the wisdom of the advice, nodded assent; and
remarking for the first time the sensation of which he was the centre,
was glad to make the best of his way towards the gates. He had barely
reached them--without shaking off a knot of the more curious, who still