Still for a few seconds the deep, mysterious, wondering look continued in the hollow eyes. Then he turned his head slowly back to the original position. The words struck the doctor as singular. He did not remember that he had ever heard a patient use just that phrase, though so many persons when near the point of death give warning of their end in some such expression.
“You’re not going yet,” the doctor answered, mechanically, and he held a glass to the old man’s lips.
“I don’t want any false hope. I know it’s coming,” answered the dying man, speaking against the rim of the little tumbler.
Routh stood up to his vast height, and then his nervous, emaciated frame bent like a birch sapling in a gale as he leaned over the bed, and listened to the fluttering beats of the heart that had almost done its work.
“Shall I call anybody?” he asked. “Is there anything you want done?”
“How long do you think it will be?” asked Robert Lauderdale, trying to speak more rapidly.
“Half an hour, perhaps,” answered Routh.
In their voices there was that indescribable tone with which the words of brave men are uttered in the face of death. No one who has ever heard it can forget it.
“I’d like to say good-bye to Katharine.” He paused and drew breath heavily. “Will it hurt her?” he asked, presently.
“No,” answered the doctor, seeing the look of anxiety which accompanied the question.