Mr Burton’s mild eyes blinked their astonishment behind their glasses. He had never happened across such an extraordinary sequence of remarkable incidents in all his life before. It fully bore out his oft-repeated assertion that it is not only in big cities that the great events occur.
“He has been shot in the breast,” he answered gravely. “His condition is not critical, but it is sufficiently serious. It was the most dastardly attempt upon his life. I witnessed the whole affair,—indeed, Mr Lawless and I had but a few minutes previously parted company. I am not a vindictive man, I hope, sir; but I should wish the man who was responsible for that cowardly attack to suffer punishment. But I cannot persuade Mr Lawless to furnish me with a clue as to his identity, and I was too far away to see clearly. Perhaps when Mr Lawless recovers he may speak of the matter, at present it is not wise to refer to it before him. We have orders to keep him as quiet as possible.”
“Who’s attending him? ... Got a decent medical man?” Colonel Grey asked, with some idea in his mind of sending to Cape Town for skilled advice and nurses.
“Oh! we have an excellent man... Out from England for his health. Mr Lawless is quite well looked after in that respect.”
“And nurses?”
The little man looked surprised.
“The landlady does what is necessary,” he explained. “I help a little... Yes.”
“But—good Lord, man!—he wants trained nursing.”
Colonel Grey turned round and spoke to Mrs Lawless, and she rose from her seat and approached them. The pathos of her expression, her pallor, and her great personal charm, made a direct appeal to Mr Burton’s kindly nature. Her singular beauty impressed him vividly. While sympathising strongly with her anxiety, he was none the less glad that she had come; it would be such an agreeable piece of news to break to the sufferer.
“Tell me,” she said. “I have watched you talking till I am half afraid to ask. He’s ill... He’s very ill... I know he is. You are not going to tell me that he will die?”