" And now he suspected female cunning and malice in the way that
thunderbolt had been quietly prepared for him and launched, without
warning, in his very daughter's presence, and the result just
communicated to Julia Dodd.
In a very gloomy mood he followed his son, and heard his firm though
elastic tread on the frosty ground, and saw how loftily he carried his
head; and from that moment feared, and very, very nearly hated him.
The next day he feigned sick and sent for Osmond. That worthy prescribed
a pill and a draught, the former laxative, the latter astringent. This
ceremony performed, Mr. Hardie gossipped with him; and, after a detour or
two, glided to his real anxiety. "Sampson tells me you know more about
Captain Dodd's case than he does: he is not very clear as to the cause of
the poor man's going mad."
"The cause? Why, apoplexy."
"Yes, but I mean what caused the apoplexy?"
Mr. Osmond replied that apoplexy was often idiopathic.* Captain Dodd, as
he understood, had fallen down in the street in a sudden fit: "but as for
the mania, that is to be attributed to an insufficient evacuation of
blood while under the apoplectic coma.
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