It had an extraordinary effect upon Ford. He gave a gasp, and raised himself up into a sitting posture, his mouth open, his eyes glued on O'Mally. For a minute not one of them said a word—Ford evidently too paralyzed at what he'd heard, and the others too surprised at the way Ford was acting which was exactly different to what they'd expected. It was he who spoke first, his voice gone down to a husky murmur:
"Dead?"
O'Mally answered:
"Heart disease, angina pectoris. The doctor down there said some strain or effort had finished him. That, as we see it, was the attack he made on you."
Then Ford did the most surprising thing of all. Raising his hands he clapped both over his face, and with a big, heaving sob from the bottom of his chest, fell back on the pillows and began to cry.
Babbitts said you couldn't have believed it if you hadn't seen it—he and O'Mally looking stumped at each other and between them that great ox of a man, lying in the bed crying like a baby. Then Himself, being fearful that maybe they'd done the man harm, rose up to go after a nurse, but O'Mally caught him by the coat, whispering, "Keep still, you goat," then turned and said very pleasant to Ford:
"Knocked you out, old man. That's natural, nerves still weak. Keep it up till you feel better. Don't mind us—we're used to it."
So there they sat, Babbitts still uneasy, but O'Mally, calm and patient, tilting back in his chair looking dreamy out of the window. He said afterward that he knew that hysterical fit for what it was—relief, and that was why he wouldn't let Babbitts call a nurse.
Presently the sobs began to ease off and Ford, groping under the pillow for a handkerchief, said, all choked up:
"How did you come to connect him with me?"