There was nothing particularly alarming in all that, and yet there was that in the room which once more seized the man at his heart and held him there, rigid again, terrified, and, above all, inexpressibly awed.  (At least, that is how I should interpret his description.) He said that it wasn’t like the spare bedroom at all, as he ordinarily knew it (and, indeed, it was a mean sort of room when I saw it, without a fireplace, though of tolerable size).  It was like another room altogether, said Thomas.

He tried to listen to what Frank was saying, and I imagine he heard it all quite intelligently; yet, once more, all he could say afterwards was that it was about religion ... about religion....

So he stood, till he suddenly perceived that the doctor was looking at him with a frown and contorted features of eloquence.  He understood that he was to go.  He closed the door noiselessly; and, after another pause, sped upstairs without a sound in his red cloth slippers.

(IV)

When Frank awoke to normal consciousness again, he lay still, wondering what it was all about.  He saw a table at the foot of his bed and noticed on it a small leather case, two green bottles stoppered with india-rubber, and a small covered bowl looking as if it contained beef-tea.  He extended his explorations still further, and discovered an Hanoverian wardrobe against the left wall, a glare of light (which he presently discerned to be a window), a dingy wall-paper, and finally a door.  As he reached this point the door opened and an old man with a velvet skull-cap, spectacles, and a kind, furrowed face, came in and stood over him.

“Well?” said the old man.

“I am a bit stiff,” said Frank.

“Are you hungry?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, you’re doing very well, if that’s any satisfaction to you,” observed the doctor, frowning on him doubtfully.

Frank said nothing.

The doctor sat down on a chair by the bed that Frank suddenly noticed for the first time.

“Well,” said the doctor, “I suppose you want to know the facts.  Here they are.  My name is Whitty; I’m a doctor; you’re in my house.  This is Wednesday afternoon; your friends brought you here yesterday morning.  I’ve given them some work in the garden.  You were ill yesterday, but you’re all right now.”

“What was the matter?”

“We won’t bother about names,” said the doctor with a kind sharpness.  “You had a blister; it broke and became a sore; then you wore one of those nasty cheap socks and it poisoned it.  That’s all.”

“That’s in those bottles?” asked Frank languidly. (He felt amazingly weak and stupid.)

“Well, it’s an anti-toxin,” said the doctor.  “That doesn’t tell you much, does it?”

“No,” said Frank....  “By the way, who’s going to pay you, doctor?  I can’t.”

The doctor’s face rumpled up into wrinkles. (Frank wished he wouldn’t sit with his back to the window.)