“Thank God, Maurice Carlyle still lives.”
She involuntarily raised her hands towards heaven, and the expression of dread melted from her countenance.
Slowly and reverently she re-covered the corpse, and approached the nurse.
“I am searching for my husband. Which cot is No. 7?”
“That on your left,—next to the dead.”
Mrs. Carlyle turned, and gazed at the bloated crimson mass of disease that writhed on the narrow bed, and a long shudder crept over her, as she endeavored to discover in that loathsome 428 hideous visage some familiar feature—some trace of the manly beauty that once rendered it so fascinating.
The swollen blood-shot eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling, and, while delirious muttering fell upon the ears of the visitor, she saw that his cheeks were somewhat lacerated, and his hands, partially confined, were tearing at the inflamed flesh.
She shivered with horror, and a groan broke from her pitying heart.
“What an awful retribution! My God, have mercy upon him! He is sufficiently punished.”
Drawing her perfumed lace handkerchief from her pocket, she leaned over and wiped away the bloody foam that oozed across his lips, and lifting his hot head turned it sufficiently to expose the right ear, where a large mole was hidden by the thick hair.