Ha, ha! ha, ha!” and supporting himself along the wall he made his way slowly to the threshold, unfastened the locks, removed the heavy bar, opened the door, and cried out in a voice that was not human, that shuddered its way along the chill passage through the shrinking air:
“Robert—Robert!” and then, reeling, stumbling toward a near-by chair, he fell ere he could reach it, in utter collapse to the floor, and lay there—shriveled, grotesque, in no way pathetic, in all points contemptible, as his nephew, in response to his uncle’s unearthly summons, rushed into the room, followed by the wide-eyed spinster.
For three days during the week that followed Raikes lay oblivious to the considerations of loss or gain.
The utmost of the young medical attendant, who had been selected on the basis of the small charges incident to a beginning practice, had failed to restore the emaciated man to his suspended consciousness, until, toward the morning of the fourth day, the spinster, who sat near-by in weary vigil, was startled to behold the dull eyes of her brother fastened upon her with the faraway, questioning look of one returning from the confines of the nether to the sharp realities of existence.
“Rodman?” she inquired with anxious interrogation.
In response the thin lips of the sufferer moved slowly.
Approaching the bed, his sister, leaning over the unfortunate Raikes, heard him articulate with difficulty “Water!”
Supporting his head with one hand, the spinster supplied his feebly-sighed request, and when the last difficult swallow conveyed the refreshing draught along his fevered throat, she restored his head to the pillow and awaited developments.
As she sat at the bedside in an attitude of fearful expectation, it was evident that some transformation, more wholesome than subtle, had manifested itself in the mien and physique of his nurse.
A large degree of her pitiful attenuity had vanished; a legible vestige of placid well-being seemed to have replaced the hunger of her eyes; there was a vague, unsubstantial promise of possible comeliness in the restoration of her cheeks.