VIII
Who could possibly be up and about in our quiet village at the second hour
of the morning?
The person who opened the door appeared within range of the light of the
candle. To complete our amazement, the person proved to be a woman! She
walked up to the counter, and standing side by side with me, lifted her
veil. At the moment when she showed her face, I heard the church clock
strike two. She was a stranger to me, and a stranger to the doctor. She
was also, beyond all comparison, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen
in my life.
"I saw the light under the door," she said. "I want some medicine."
She spoke quite composedly, as if there was nothing at all extraordinary
in her being out in the village at two in the morning, and following me
into the surgery to ask for medicine! The doctor stared at her as if he
suspected his own eyes of deceiving him. "Who are you?" he asked. "How do
you come to be wandering about at this time in the morning?"
She paid no heed to his questions. She only told him coolly what she
wanted. "I have got a bad toothache. I want a bottle of laudanum."
The doctor recovered himself when she asked for the laudanum. He was on
his own ground, you know, when it came to a matter of laudanum; and he
spoke to her smartly enough this time.
"Oh, you have got the toothache, have you? Let me look at the tooth.
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