"There was Ketley."
"No, Bill, don't let's think about it. If you're truly sorry, God will forgive."
"Do you think He will—and the others that we know nothing about? I wouldn't listen to you; I was headstrong, but I understand it all now. My eyes 'ave been opened. Them pious folk that got up the prosecution knew what they was about. I forgive them one and all."
William coughed a little. The conversation paused, and the cough was repeated down the corridor. Now it came from the men lying on the long cane chairs; now from the poor emaciated creature, hollow cheeks, brown eyes and beard, who had just come out of his ward and had sat down on a bench by the wall. Now it came from an old man six feet high, with snow-white hair. He sat near them, and worked assiduously at a piece of tapestry. "It'll be better when it's cut," he said to one of the nurses, who had stopped to compliment him on his work; "it'll be better when it's cut." Then the cough came from one of the wards, and Esther thought of the fearsome boy sitting bolt up, his huge tallow-like face staring through the silence of the room. A moment after the cough came from her husband's lips, and they looked at each other. Both wanted to speak, and neither knew what to say. At last William spoke.
"I was saying that I never had that feeling about Chasuble as one 'as about a winner. Did she run second? Just like my luck if she did. Let me see the paper."
Esther handed it to him.
"Bramble, a fifty to one chance, not a man in a hundred backed her; King of Trumps, there was some place money lost on him; Young Hopeful, a rank outsider. What a day for the bookies!"
"You mustn't think of them things no more," said Esther. "You've got the
Book; it'll do you more good."
"If I'd only have thought of Bramble… I could have had a hundred to one against Matchbox and Bramble coupled."
"What's the use of thinking of things that's over? We should think of the future."