CHAPTER XXII.
[DICK RELIEVES GRACIE'S FEELING BY ONE EXPRESSIVE WORD.]
"At last!" said Dick. "At last a ray of light! What's the time?" He looked at a clock in a baker's shop. "Five minutes past ten. Ought I to go to her at once? No, I think not. Had she wanted me earlier she would have said, 'Come to me the moment you get this letter.' Four long hours to wait. What am I to do with myself till two o'clock?"
With the idea of making time fly faster he began to count his steps-- ten, twenty, thirty, one hundred, two hundred, three hundred. He made a calculation. A step a second, three hundred steps three hundred seconds, five minutes, and five minutes more employed in thought and calculation. Ten minutes gone, ten minutes nearer to Florence. He came to another shop with a clock in it; it marked eight minutes past ten. He had done all this in three minutes. He had walked too quickly, and was fast working himself up to fever heat. "Keep cool, my lad," he muttered; "you'll mar instead of mend if you don't keep cool."
But the events of the last few hours, with their tragic issues, pressed so heavily upon him that he found it no easy matter to keep cool. Much easier was it to conjure up the feelings of a murderer, who, oppressed with the weight of his undiscovered crime, fancies he discerns in every face the knowledge of his guilt--turning his head over his shoulder every minute to see if he was being dogged--starting at familiar sounds, especially at the sound of bells and clocks striking the hour, every peal proclaiming to all the world that a Murderer was passing that way--tortured by the devilish temptation to leap into the middle of the road, and flinging up his arms to scream aloud, "Stop, you grinning fools! I did it!" Then running to a bridge, with a mob at his heels, and flinging himself into the river.
For some minutes Dick was under a spell of this nature. He looked nervously at the head-lines on the newspaper bills, and listened for the shouting of the newsboys, "Murder! Murder! Frightful Murder in Catchpole Square!" But no such words reached his ears. Passing the shop in which he had purchased the rope and grapnel, he was almost prepared to see the dirty-faced old man, in his list slippers and greasy skull cap, run out and cry, "Stop that man! Ask him what he did with the rope he bought of me last night. Stop him--stop him!"
"I am losing my senses," said Dick, "indulging in these fancies. I shall be deluding myself presently into the belief that it was I who murdered Samuel Boyd. I'll go and see little Gracie. I may get some news of Abel Death."
Gracie was in bed, and Mrs. Death was in the adjoining room, preparing a linseed poultice for her. She looked into Dick's face, and dropped her eyes.
"You've heard nothing, sir?"
"Nothing," he replied. "I have come to see Gracie. Is she any better?"
"She's no worse, sir," said Mrs. Death, with a sigh, "but I can hardly keep her in bed, and the trouble I have to put a poultice on her is beyond description; I have almost to go on my bended knees. She's the dearest child, sir; she never thinks of herself."
Upon Dick's entrance Gracie sat up in bed and put out her hand; it was hot and clammy, and Dick patted it kindly, and held it in his. The faces of the other children, who were all sitting on the floor, playing shop with stones and broken pieces of crockery, became illumined at sight of Dick.
"It's good of you to come," said Gracie. "I thought you would. You mustn't mind my coughing a bit. I'm ever so much better, but mother will worry about me. I want to whisper to you. Do you think father's dead?"
"No, Gracie," he said, to comfort her. "I don't think that."
"Then what's keeping him away? Is he afraid of somebody? Father never did anything wrong. We'll look for him together when I'm well. Shall we?"
"Yes, Gracie; and so that you may get well soon and find him, you mustn't sit up in bed." He put her head gently on the hard pillow, and arranged the scanty coverings over her. She made no resistance, but kept her eyes upon him, gravely and steadily.
"I've been dreaming of you all night long," she said.
"Now, what do you want?" said Dick to Connie, who was standing at his knee.
"Here's two ounces of tea," said Connie, giving him a stone, "and some scrag of mutton" (giving him another), "and a silk dress" (giving him another), "and a pound of sugar, and a penn'orth of brandy balls, and a pair of boots, and four pounds of potatoes, and a pint of beer"--all represented by stones, which Dick accepted with an air of great enjoyment. "If you haven't got any money we'll trust you." Having effected which sale upon these unbusinesslike conditions, the child trotted back to her brothers and sisters, who put their heads together and whispered.
Mrs. Death entered with the poultice, and was about to put it on, when a soft tapping was heard on the passage door. Before any one could answer it the handle was turned and Dr. Vinsen presented himself.
Gracie lay back in bed, and clutched Dick's hand tight.
As Dr. Vinsen glanced around the room, Dick thought his eyes were smaller and sleepier than on the first occasion they had met; his heavy white lids hung low, and partially veiled them; but this aspect of languor was more than counterbalanced by the fringe of yellow hair round his bald head, which gave him a luminous, not to say a saint-like appearance.
"Ah, Mr. Dick Remington," he said, in the pleasantest of voices, "good morning, good morning. Are you also here on a mission of kindness to our little patient--our lit-tle pa-tient? Permit me." He disengaged the clammy hand which clasped Dick's, and timed Gracie's pulse by his large gold watch, at which the children stared in awe. "Rather feverish, but an improvement. What do you say? It's nothing to worry about? Then we'll not worry about it. Why should we? Life brings a peck of worries in its train--why should we make the peck overflow--o-ver-flow?" With his head on one side, like a large yellow-fringed bird, he smilingly invited an opinion from Dick.
"Why, indeed?" said Dick.
"True--true. Why?" As though not he, but Dick, had made the inquiry. "We are getting along nicely, Mrs. Death, I am happy to say. In a short time we shall have our little patient running about again, playing with her companions, as well as ever. The troubles of children, eh, Mr. Remington?"
"Yes," said Dick, vaguely.
"A private word in your ear. Have we heard from our missing friend?"
"I believe not," replied Dick.
"Sad--sad--sad! But there is time--there is always time; and hope--there is always hope. She bears up."
"What else can she do? Knocking your head against a stone wall is not an agreeable diversion."
"Your head, my young friend, your head," said Dr. Vinsen, jocosely. Then turning to Mrs. Death, "What is this? A linseed poultice? Very proper. Let it be very hot. Our little patient makes a face. If she never has a worse trouble than a linseed poultice she is to be envied. Here is a bottle of medicine--a tablespoonful every four hours. I will call again to-morrow. You will not shut your door against me, eh?"
"No, indeed, sir. We don't shut the door against our best friends."
"So kind of you to say so." He paused to contemplate the group of children on the floor. "This"--with a comprehensive wave of his hand, so as to take in the whole of the room--"is a scene for an artist, and on the walls of the Academy would attract attention, even from the aristocracy."
"That wouldn't help them much," observed Dick.
"I don't know--I really don't know. It enlarges the scope, widens the sympathies--wi-dens the sym-pa-thies. Be happy, children, be happy." He went through the ceremony of shaking hands with Dick and Mrs. Death, and with an amiable smile, in which his halo seemed to take part, left the room.
"Dick," whispered Gracie. He bent towards her. "May I call you Dick?"
"Yes, Gracie."
"Wait a bit till my cough's over." She almost choked herself in her effort to finish the sentence before the cough commenced. It lasted a long time, but Dick, supporting her in his arms, was glad to hear that it was looser. Then she whispered to him again, "Don't let 'em hear us, Dick. Say Damn!
"Damn!" said Dick, without the least hesitation.
She sank back and smiled. It was the first time Dick had seen her smile, and it brought a wonderful light into her sallow face. Whatever may have been the reason for the singular request, she was evidently much relieved.