"When she comes to consciousness, will she——"
"Ah," interrupted the doctor, "who knows? We may have brain trouble—an illness we will surely have."
Then Harry English, who had so confidently said she would not die, looked at the other mutely inquiring yet further.
"Ah, my dear sir," said the Frenchman in his quick apprehension, and shrugged his shoulder. Then he added, compassionately, turning his head towards the bed:
"She is young."
Harry English closed the door and sat down in the dark passage, cross-legged after the habit that had grown second nature, and there remained. Waiting.
Suddenly he rose to his feet again; he had heard the handle of the door click. M. Châtelard stood on the threshold.
"The Indian woman," he whispered, "she makes a noise. She must go."
Jani, crouching in a hidden corner within, had set up a moaning. The sound of her wail caught Harry English's ear: a creeping chill passed over him; that Eastern lament that had nothing human in its note, but was as the despair of the animal that mourns without understanding, how familiar it was to his ear! So did the women there, over seas, wail only over death. He, who had held himself in such strength hitherto, was shaken to his soul. He could not form the words that rose to his lips.
"You know how to deal with these persons," pursued the Frenchman, absorbed in his thoughts, and in the dusk unable to read the other's countenance, "I beg you to remove her at once. But, chut, chut, attention, please, not to disturb my patient!"