“May I see him?”
“I shall be very glad for you to do so.”
“Let me go to him at once,” gasped the vicar wildly.
XLVI
His eyes growing dark, the vicar asked for a prayer book. When this had been procured, the doctor led him through a maze of dismal corridors to a small door at the extreme end of a long passage.
At the doctor’s gentle tap it was opened by the head attendant.
“Any change, Boswell?” whispered the doctor.
There was no change it appeared.
At first the vicar stood irresolute on the threshold of the cell. His manner made it clear that he desired to be alone with the dying man, and in a few moments the doctor and the attendant went away. The vicar, grasping his prayer book like a staff, then passed in alone, and the heavy door swung to behind him with a self-closing click which locked it securely.
The room had only a bedstead. It was very hard to see in that night of time through which the vicar was now looking. Not daring to approach the bed, he stood hopelessly by the door, naked in spirit, faint of soul. He could neither speak nor move. There was not a sound in the room, nor any light. He stood alone.