“Claire,” he whispered, looking up at her with a white face, “Claire, this man is dead.”
“What? No,—no! it can’t be——”
“Yes, he is,—I’m almost certain,—I don’t think I’d better touch him,—or, should I? It can do no harm to feel for his heart,—no, it is not beating,—what does it mean? Where’s Miss Varian?”
“Think quickly, Mr Landon, what we ought to do.” Claire Blackwood spoke earnestly, and tried to pull herself together. “We must be careful to do the right thing. I should say, before we even think of Miss Betty we should call Doctor Varian up here——”
“The very thing! Will you call him, or shall I?”
Considerately, Landon gave her her choice.
With a shuddering glance at the still figure, Claire said, “You call him, but let me go with you.”
They stepped out on the veranda, and Landon waved his hand at the group of waiting people below him.
Then he beckoned, but no one definitely responded.
“I’ll have to shout,” Ted said, with a regretful look. “Somehow I hate to,——” the presence of death seemed to restrain him.