“God watch over you and take you, for you are lost to me forever!”
CHAPTER V
It was the night of December 1st, and torrents of rain poured down, flooding the streets of the city and the grounds of the Presidio.
Seven had just struck from the little, old-fashioned clock on Cobb’s mantel.
But few changes had taken place in that room since the last evening we saw our friends there.
The lights shone just as brightly, and the fire in the grate glowed with all its former heat and cheerfulness, yet an air of depression seemed to pervade the whole room and its occupants.
Cobb walked the floor with a quick and jerky step, while Craft sat silently watching the embers in the grate, as if trying to solve some abstruse problem by their aid. Hathaway lay at full length upon the long sofa, near the further wall, puffing a cigar and sending out the circles of smoke in a manner peculiar to men who are in a nervous mood.
From the time that his comrades came that evening, with the exception of a few words of welcome, Cobb had appeared in this abstracted manner, and had seemed to be totally oblivious to his surroundings. His friends had, with great perception, understood his feelings, and had remained in their chairs, preserving a dead silence, waiting for him to open the conversation.