It was in a reverie of this fashion he walked the streets, as little cognisant of the crowd around him as if he were sauntering along some rippling stream in a mountain gorge.
CHAPTER LXXIII
A DARKENED KOOM
The ‘comatose’ state, to use the language of the doctors, into which Gorman O’Shea had fallen, had continued so long as to excite the greatest apprehensions of his friends; for although not amounting to complete insensibility, it left him so apathetic and indifferent to everything and every one, that the girls Kate and Nina, in pure despair, had given up reading or talking to him, and passed their hours of ‘watching’ in perfect silence in the half-darkened room.
The stern immobility of his pale features, the glassy and meaningless stare of his large blue eyes, the unvarying rhythm of a long-drawn respiration, were signs that at length became more painful to contemplate than evidences of actual suffering; and as day by day went on, and interest grew more and more eager about the trial, which was fixed for the coming assize, it was pitiable to see him, whose fate was so deeply pledged on the issue, unconscious of all that went on around him, and not caring to know any of those details the very least of which might determine his future lot.
The instructions drawn up for the defence were sadly in need of the sort of information which the sick man alone could supply; and Nina and Kate had both been entreated to watch for the first favourable moment that should present itself, and ask certain questions, the answers to which would be of the last importance.
Though Gill’s affidavit gave many evidences of unscrupulous falsehood, there was no counter-evidence to set against it, and O’Shea’s counsel complained strongly of the meagre instructions which were briefed to him in the case, and his utter inability to construct a defence upon them.
‘He said he would tell me something this evening, Kate,’ said Nina; ‘so, if you will let me, I will go in your place and remind him of his promise.’
This hopeful sign of returning intelligence was so gratifying to Kate that she readily consented to the proposition of her cousin taking her ‘watch,’ and, if possible, learning something of his wishes.