“But Parkins!” cried Uncle Luke, agitatedly, “I cannot. If this is true—that poor boy—no, no, he must not be taken now.”
“Too late, sir, to talk like that,” cried the sergeant. “You stop there.”
“Yes,” said Pradelle, as the door closed on the sergeant’s retiring figure; “pleasant for you. I always hated you for a sneering old crab. It’s your time to feel now.”
“Silence, you scoundrel!” cried Uncle Luke, fiercely. “She’s coming to.”
Uncle Luke was wrong, for Louise only moaned slightly, and then relapsed into insensibility, from which a doctor who was fetched did not seem to recall her, and hour after hour of patient watching followed, but Harry did not return.
“The bird has been scared, sir,” said Parkins, entering the room at last. “I can’t ask you to stay longer. There’s a cab at the door to take the lady to your hotel.”
“But are you sure—that—my poor boy lives?”
“Certain, sir, now. I’ve had his description from the people down below. I shall have him before to-night.”
“L’homme propose, mais—”
Five minutes later Louise, quite insensible, was being borne to the hotel; Mr Pradelle, to an establishment offering similar advantages as to bed and board, but with the freedom of ingress and egress left out.