Interesting to a doctor," was the gruff reply.
Horace good-humoredly accepted the hint implied in those words.

He quitted the room by the door leading into the yard, and waited for the charming Englishwoman, as he had been instructed, outside the cottage.
Left by himself, Ignatius Wetzel, after a first cautious look all round him, opened the upper part of Grace's dress, and laid his left hand on her heart.

Taking a little steel instrument from his waistcoat pocket with the other hand, he applied it carefully to the wound, raised a morsel of the broken and depressed bone of the skull, and waited for the result.

"Aha!" he cried, addressing with a terrible gayety the senseless creature under his hands.

"The Frenchman says you are dead, my dear--does he?
The Frenchman is a Quack! The Frenchman is an Ass!" He lifted his head, and called into the kitchen.