"What is to be
done? I have every confidence in you, Mr. Brook; and were Edward my own
child, I should know how to act. Do you think it would be dangerous to
give him this prescription? You may speak confidentially."
"Not dangerous; it is a prescription that will do neither harm nor
good. I suspect Sir Alexander could not detect the nature of the illness,
and wrote this merely to gain time. It is not an infrequent custom to
do so. In my opinion, not an hour should be lost in giving him a more
efficacious medicine; early treatment is everything in scarlet-fever."
Lady Hartledon had been rapidly making up her mind. "Send in what you
think right to be taken, immediately," she said, "and meet Sir Alexander
in consultation later on."
Scarlet-fever it proved to be; not a mild form of it; and in a very few
hours Lord Elster was in great danger, the throat being chiefly affected.
The house was in commotion; the dowager worse than any one in it. A
complication of fears beset her: first, terror for her own safety, and
next, the less abject dread that death might remove _her_ grandchild. In
this latter fear she partly lost her personal fears, so far at any rate
as to remain in the house; for it seemed to her that the child would
inevitably die if she left it. Late in the afternoon she rushed into the
presence of the doctors, who had just been holding a second consultation.
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