Kennedy moved over quietly to the bedside, as Winifred looked appealingly at him, as much as to say, “Isn’t there something you can do to quiet him?”
He bent down and took Shelby’s hand.
“Oh—it’s you, Kennedy—is it?” wandered Shelby, not quite clear yet where he was, in the fantasy of impressions that crowded his mind since the accident. “I asked you to work with me once. You said you would play fair.”
“I will,” repeated Kennedy, “as far as the interests of my client go, I will give you every assistance. But if you are to do anything at all to-morrow, you must rest to-night.”
“Have I—have I been talking?” queried Shelby, as though in doubt whether he had been thinking to himself or aloud.
Kennedy ignored the question. “You need rest,” he said, simply. “Let the doctor fix you up now. In the morning—well, to-morrow will be another day.”
Shelby passed his hand wearily over his aching head. He was too weak to argue.
While the doctor prepared a mild opiate Kennedy and I quietly withdrew into the next room.
“Professor Kennedy—won’t you help us?” pleaded Miss Walcott, who had followed. “Surely something can be done.”
I could not help noticing that she said “us,” not “him.” As I watched her the scene on the float, hours before, flashed over me. There another woman, under quite different circumstances, had made the same appeal. Where did Paquita fit into the scheme of things? Two women had been striving over Shelby’s life. Did one represent his better nature, the other his worse?