"'Accident,' I said to her with all my strength. 'Went off in my hand.'
"My own bed.
"Clothes being cut away. Round my knee the cloth had stuck. The new grey suit which I'd meant should last the whole summer.
"Then two strangers became conspicuous, doctors, I suppose, whispering, and one of them had his sleeves up and showed a pair of fat pink arms. Sponges and a tinkle of water dripping into a basin. They prodded me about. Damn! That hurt! Then stinging stuff. What was the good of it? I was in the body they were prodding, and I knew all about it and I was sure that I was a dead man.
"Milly again.
"'My dear,' I whispered. 'Dear!' and her poor, tearful face beamed love upon me.
"Valiant Milly! Things had never been fair to her.
"Fanny? Had Newberry gone to fetch her? Anyhow he had vanished.
"She'd say nothing about Hetty. She was as safe as—safe as what?—what did one say?—any thing—safe.
"Poor dears! What a fuss they were all in. It seemed almost shameful of me to be glad that I was going out of it all. But I was glad. This pistol shot had come like the smashing of a window in a stuffy room. My chief desire was to leave kind and comforting impressions on those poor survivors who might still have to stay on in the world of muddle for years and years. Life! What a muddle and a blundering it had been! I'd never have to grow old now anyhow....