I put my mouth close to DeVare’s ear and said:
“Ramie, do you wish to speak?”
He opened his eyes languidly, and with a motion of his brow signified yes. I wiped his lips and put the vial to his mouth. He swallowed a little of the liquid, which seemed to revive him for a moment. He tightened his clasp on my hand and said feebly:
“It is as I expected, John. Tell mother——” but the flow of blood choked his utterance again. I again put the vial to his lips, but he turned his head away from it, and in a whisper said:
“No, ‘tis useless. Oh, my lonely mother, forgive me! Dear Christ have mercy——” A shuddering clasp of the white fingers locked in mine, a paler hue on the pallid face, and only Raymond DeVare’s body lay in my arms. The great weight of impending evil I had so much dreaded had crushed down upon me, and I was almost senseless beneath the blow. I could not realize the fact, but sat in stupid wonderment, gazing at the lifeless features. Ramie, my fond, true friend, dead! So full of life and activity but a moment ago; now dead! Dead for my sake; dead because I was insulted; dead for a hasty word; dead on the warrant of cowardly society, that would now shrink from the poor fool who killed him at its behest. Dead! dead! DEAD!
I leaned my cheek down on the forehead, already growing cold, and murmured, weeping like a woman:
“No, no, Ramie, you are not dead? Speak to me, Ramie, one word, open your eyes; one more look, Ramie!
The surgeon touched my arm and said:
“The carriages have returned, as you ordered; we had better get the body in and drive back to C——, where you can telegraph to Wilmington for a case, and carry him home to-morrow.”