Von Rosen intercepted her.

"What does Doctor Sturtevant think ?" he asked.
"Dunno, what he thinks," replied Martha brusquely, pushing past him.
"Is she conscious yet ?" "Dunno, I ain't got any time to talk," said Martha, casting a flaming look at him over her shoulder as she entered the kitchen.
Von Rosen retreated to the study, where he was presently joined by the doctor.

"What is it ?" asked Von Rosen with an emphasis, which rendered it so suspicious that he might have added: "what the devil is it ?" had it not been for his profession.
Sturtevant answered noiselessly, the motion of his lips conveying his meaning.

Then he said, shrugging himself into his fur coat, as he spoke, "I have to rush my motor to see a patient, whom I dare not leave another moment, then I will be back." Von Rosen's great Persian cat had curled himself on the doctor's fur coat, and now shaken off, sat with a languid dignity, his great yellow plume of a tail waving, and his eyes like topazes fixed intently upon Sturtevant.

At that moment a little cry was heard from the guest room, a cry between a moan and a scream, but unmistakably a note of suffering.