The lights were out, the play was over, the house still and silent,
when, with loud shrieks, Mrs. Purling's maid rushed to Phillipa's
room.
"Mrs. Purling, ma'am!--my mistress, she is dying! Come to her! She is
nearly gone!"
In truth, the poor old woman was in the extremest agony; it was quite
terrible to see her. She gasped as if for air; her whole frame jerked
and twitched with the violence of her convulsions; gradually her body
was drawn in a curve, like that of a tensely-strung bow.
The spasms abated, then recommenced; abated, then raged with increased
fury. But through it all she was conscious; she had even the power of
speech, and cried aloud again and again, with a bitter heart-wrung
cry, for "Harold! Harold!" the absent much-wronged son.
"The symptoms are those of tetanus," said the nearest medical
practitioner, who had been called in. He seemed fairly puzzled.
"Tetanus or--" He did not finish the sentence, because the single
word that was on his lips formed a serious charge against a person or
persons unknown. "But there is nothing to explain lock-jaw; while the
abatement of the symptoms points to--" Again he paused.
The muscles of the mouth, which had been the last attacked, gradually
resumed their normal condition. The patient appeared altogether more
easy, the writhings subsided; presently, as if utterly exhausted, she
sank off to sleep.
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