Southern intonation she fell back upon when most contemptuous.
But Dr. Blair's increasing practice and the widow's preoccupation
presently ended their brief intimacy. It was well known that she
encouraged no suitors at the hotel, and his shyness and sensitiveness
shrank from ostentatious advances. There seemed to be no chance of her
becoming, herself, his patient; her sane mind, indolent nerves, and calm
circulation kept her from feminine "vapors" of feminine excesses. She
retained the teeth and digestion of a child in her thirty odd years, and
abused neither. Riding and the cultivation of her little garden gave
her sufficient exercise. And yet the unexpected occurred! The day after
Starbottle left, Dr. Blair was summoned hastily to the hotel. Mrs.
MacGlowrie had been found lying senseless in a dead faint in the
passage outside the dining room. In his hurried flight thither with the
messenger he could learn only that she had seemed to be in her usual
health that morning, and that no one could assign any cause for her
fainting.
He could find out little more when he arrived and examined her as she
lay pale and unconscious on the sofa of her sitting room. It had not
been thought necessary to loosen her already loose dress, and indeed he
could find no organic disturbance. The case was one of sudden nervous
shock--but this, with his knowledge of her indolent temperament, seemed
almost absurd. They could tell him nothing but that she was evidently on
the point of entering the dining room when she fell unconscious. Had
she been frightened by anything? A snake or a rat? Miss Morvin
was indignant! The widow of MacGlowrie--the repeller of
grizzlies--frightened at "sich"! Had she been upset by any previous
excitement, passion, or the receipt of bad news? No!--she "wasn't that
kind," as the doctor knew. And even as they were speaking he felt the
widow's healthy life returning to the pulse he was holding, and giving
a faint tinge to her lips. Her blue-veined eyelids quivered slightly
and then opened with languid wonder on the doctor and her surroundings.
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