He had noted with admiration the strange gentleness of the giant Romany
as he, alone, carried Ingolby in his arms, and laid him on the bed from
which he was to rise with all that he had fought for overthrown, himself
the blind victim of a hard fate. He had noticed the old man straighten
himself with a spring and stand as though petrified when Ingolby said:
"Why don't you turn on the light?" As he looked round in that instant of
ghastly silence he had observed almost mechanically that the old man's
lips were murmuring something. Then the thought of Fleda Druse shot into
Rockwell's mind, and it harassed him during the hours Ingolby slept, and
after the giant Gipsy had taken his departure just before the dawn.
"I'm afraid it will mean more there than anywhere else," he said sadly to
himself. "There was evidently something between those two; and she isn't
the kind to take it philosophically. Poor girl! Poor girl! It's a bitter
dose, if there was anything in it," he added.
He watched beside the sick-bed till the dawn stared in and his patient
stirred and waked, then he took Ingolby's hand, grown a little cooler, in
both his own. "How are you feeling, old man?" he asked cheerfully.
"You've had a good sleep-nearly three and a half hours.
Pages:
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246