The little
dressmaker remained at his elbow, looking from him to Trina.
"Poor little woman!" said the doctor; "poor little woman!"
Miss Baker pointed to the trunk, whispering:
"See, there's where she kept her savings. See, he broke the lock."
"Well, Mrs. McTeague," said the doctor, sitting down by the bed, and
taking Trina's wrist, "a little fever, eh?"
Trina opened her eyes and looked at him, and then at Miss Baker. She did
not seem in the least surprised at the unfamiliar faces. She appeared to
consider it all as a matter of course.
"Yes," she said, with a long, tremulous breath, "I have a fever, and my
head--my head aches and aches."
The doctor prescribed rest and mild opiates. Then his eye fell upon the
fingers of Trina's right hand. He looked at them sharply. A deep
red glow, unmistakable to a physician's eyes, was upon some of them,
extending from the finger tips up to the second knuckle.
"Hello," he exclaimed, "what's the matter here?" In fact something was
very wrong indeed. For days Trina had noticed it. The fingers of her
right hand had swollen as never before, aching and discolored. Cruelly
lacerated by McTeague's brutality as they were, she had nevertheless
gone on about her work on the Noah's ark animals, constantly in contact
with the "non-poisonous" paint.
Pages:
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417