CHAPTER XV
THE KING'S DECREE
For three weeks after the operation Capper said nothing good or bad of his patient's condition, and during those weeks he scarcely went beyond the terrace. He moved about like a man absorbed, and it seemed to Anne whenever they met that he looked at her without seeing her.
Nap was even closer in his attendance, and Tawny Hudson found himself more than ever supplanted and ignored. For night and day he was at hand, sleeping when and how he could, always alert at the briefest notice, always ready with unfailing nerve and steady hand.
And Capper suffered him without the smallest remonstrance. He seemed to take it for granted that Nap's powers were illimitable.
"That young man will kill himself," Dr. Randal said once. "He is living at perpetual high pressure."
"Leave him alone," growled Capper. "He is the force that drives the engine. The wheels won't go round without him."
And this seemed true; for the wheels went round very, very slowly in those days. Lucas Errol came back to life, urged by a vitality not his own, and the Shadow of Death still lingered in his eyes.
He did not suffer very greatly, and he slept as he had not slept for years, but his progress was slow, sometimes imperceptible. The languor of intense weakness hung like a leaden weight upon him. The old brave cheeriness had given place to a certain curious wistfulness. He seemed too weary for effort, content at all times to sleep the hours away.
Yet when Capper demanded effort he yielded without protest. He did his best, and he smiled at each evidence of returning powers.