Henry Dunbar: A NovelBraddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
General
Henry Dunbar: A Novel
Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
Fiction
One of the banker's legs was broken, and he had received a blow upon
the head, which had rendered him immediately unconscious.
But there were cases much worse than that of the banker; the surgeon
who examined the sufferers said that Mr. Dunbar might recover from his
injuries in two or three months, if he was carefully treated. The
fracture of the leg was very simple; and if the limb was skilfully set,
there would not be the least fear of contraction.
Half-a-dozen surgeons were busy in one of the waiting-rooms at the
Rugby station, whither the sufferers had been conveyed, and one of them
took possession of the banker.
Mr. Dunbar's card-case had been found in the breast-pocket of his
overcoat, and a great many people in the waiting-room knew that the
gentleman with the white lace and grey moustache, lying so quietly upon
one of the broad sofas, was no less a personage than Henry Dunbar, of
Maudesley Abbey and St. Gundolph Lane. The surgeon knew it, and thought
his good angel had sent this particular patient across his pathway.
He made immediate arrangements for bearing off Mr. Dunbar to the
nearest hotel; he sent for his assistant; and in a quarter of an hour's
time the millionaire was restored to consciousness, and opened his eyes
upon the eager faces of two medical gentlemen, and upon a room that was
strange to him.
The banker looked about him with an expression of perplexity, and then
asked where he was. He knew nothing of the accident itself, and he had
quite lost the recollection of all that had occurred immediately before
the accident, or, indeed, from the time of his leaving Maudesley Abbey.
It was only little by little that the memory of the events of that day
returned to him. He had wanted to leave Maudesley; he had wanted to go
abroad—to go upon a journey—that was no new purpose in his mind. Had he
actually set out upon that journey? Yes, surely, he must have started
upon it; but what had happened, then?
He asked the surgeon what had happened, and why it was that he found
himself in that strange place.
Mr. Daphney, the Rugby surgeon, told his patient all about the
accident, in such a bland, pleasant way, that anybody might have
thought the collision of a couple of engines rather an agreeable little
episode in a man's life.
"But we are doing admirably, sir," Mr. Daphney concluded; "nothing
could be more desirable than the way in which we are going on; and when
our leg has been set, and we've taken a cooling draught, we shall be
quite comfortable for the night. I really never saw a cleaner
fracture—never, I can assure you."
But Mr. Dunbar raised himself into a sitting position, in spite of the
remonstrances of his medical attendant, and looked anxiously about him.
"You say this place is Rugby?" he asked, moodily.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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