“There is no occasion. It is not your business this time.”
So saying, Falconer opened the door, and walked in.
Said Hugh to himself: “I must tell this man the whole story; and with it all my own.”
In a few minutes Falconer rejoined him, looking solemn, but with a kind of relieved expression on his face.
“The poor fellow is gone,” said he.
“Ah!”
“What a thing it must be, Mr. Sutherland, for a man to break out of the choke-damp of a typhus fever into the clear air of the life beyond!”
“Yes,” said Hugh; adding, after a slight hesitation, “if he be at all prepared for the change.”
“Where a change belongs to the natural order of things,” said Falconer, “and arrives inevitably at some hour, there must always be more or less preparedness for it. Besides, I think a man is generally prepared for a breath of fresh air.”
Hugh did not reply, for he felt that he did not fully comprehend his new acquaintance. But he had a strong suspicion that it was because he moved in a higher region than himself.