She bent over him.
"Now, look at me well, old girl," he whispered faintly, "and see if you can't recollect when you met me last."
"Ah!" screamed Miss Tabby, as if she had seen a ghost. "It was on the night of the flood! And you reskeed of us!"
"That's so."
"Well, then, my good gentleman, it ought to be a comfort and a conserlation to you, a laying wounded there, to reflect as how you did reskee us from drownding that night," said Miss Tabby, soothingly.
"I don't know as far as the rescuing of you is concerned, old girl, whether the act will be found set down on the debit or credit side of my account at the last day," he said, with a gleam of his old humor sparkling up from beneath all his pain of mind and body.
"So this was the man," said the old lady to herself, while Miss Libby and even Gem, looked at him with a new interest.
"Mr. Blondelle, can you tell me how you came to be wounded?" inquired the old lady.
"No, not now. I must save all my strength for what I have to say to the lawyer. Give me more brandy. And then let me alone," he said, speaking faintly and with difficulty.
His request was complied with, and then the three old women, with Gem, withdrew to the fire.