'We must get a doctor,' said Selina.

'O, my dear John, how is it you be taken like this ?' 'My impression is that he's dead!' murmured Mr.Paddock.

'He don't breathe enough to move a tomtit's feather.' There were plenty to volunteer to go for a doctor, but as it would be at least an hour before he could get there the case seemed somewhat hopeless.

The dancing-party ended as unceremoniously as it had begun; but the guests lingered round the premises till the doctor should arrive.
When he did come the sergeant-major's extremities were already cold, and there was no doubt that death had overtaken him almost at the moment that he had sat down.
The medical practitioner quite refused to accept the unhappy Selina's theory that her revelation had in any way induced Clark's sudden collapse.

Both he and the coroner afterwards, who found the immediate cause to be heart-failure, held that such a supposition was unwarranted by facts.