It was her husband’s voice, but hoarse, feeble, and broken.
For one instant she paused. But there came another faltering knock, and Harry’s voice again, more feebly still, called:
“Annie, Annie, let me in; I am dying!”
She flew to the door, unlocked and opened it; and Harry, his coat wet with half-melted snow and covered with blood, staggered forward into her arms.
CHAPTER XIX.
“Let me stay here! Don’t send me away!” were Harry’s first words, as his wife led him to a chair and supported his head against her breast.
“Yes, yes, you shall stay. Oh, Harry, what have you done? You are drenched to the skin and cold as ice! Where are you hurt? Is it only here?”
She touched his forehead, from a cut in which the blood was still flowing.
“That is all—I think,” said he, drowsily. “But I’m—cold.”
He was shivering violently. She rang the bell for assistance; but it was too late to avert the consequences of that night’s work, and before morning the fever was back upon him. It was impossible to learn from him how it had happened. When his mind wandered, he talked disconnectedly of herself, sometimes tenderly, sometimes angrily and jealously, but always of her. Annie sat up by him all night, and in the morning, with softened tread and pale, downcast, anxious face, Lilian crept in. He did not know her—he did not know any one.