No. He felt that he was a prisoner, and he could not lay a hand upon the lock. He would wait until the man came.
But it was half-past one before the door was opened and Jerry stole in on tiptoe.
“Think I wasn’t a-coming, sir?” he said, sadly.
“The news!—the news!” gasped Richard.
Jerry was silent, as he stood gazing wistfully at the inquirer.
“Can’t you see that I am dying to hear?” cried the lad imploringly.
“Yes, sir,” came in a broken voice; “but I’ve got that to tell you that’ll break your ’art as well, sir.”
“Then it is the worst?” groaned Richard.
“Yes, sir: master told me. He rang for me to tell me as soon as the doctor had gone to the hotel. I let him out, sir. Yes, sir, master rung for me to tell me; and, of course, he meant it so that I might come up and tell you. ‘Brigley,’ he says, ‘the doctor gives us no hope at all. There was a piece of bone pressing on the brain, he says, and this the doctors removed; but the shock was too much for the poor fellow, and he won’t last the night.’”
Richard sat back in his chair, rigid, as if cut in stone, and Jerry went on—