"
"Open and read them to me," commanded Ingolby. Again Ingolby was
conscious of hesitation on Jim's part. Already the acuteness of the blind
was possessing him, sharpening the senses left unimpaired. Although Jim
moved, presumably, towards the place where the telegrams lay, Ingolby
realized that his own authority was being crossed by that of the doctor
and the nurse.
"You will leave the room for a moment, nurse," he said with a brassy
vibration in the voice--a sign of nervous strain. With a smothered
protest the nurse left, and Jim stood beside the bed with the telegrams.
"Read them to me, Jim," Ingolby repeated irritably. "Be quick."
They were not wires which Ingolby should have heard at the time, when his
wound was still inflamed, when he was still on the outer circle of that
artificial sleep which the opiates had secured. They were from Montreal
and New York, and, resolved from their half-hidden suggestion into bare
elements, they meant that henceforth others would do the work he had
done. They meant, in effect, that save for the few scores of thousand
dollars he had made, he was now where he was when he came West.
When Jim had finished reading them, Ingolby sank back on the pillows and
said quietly:
"All right, Jim.
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