“Running up to the door, I pulled the bell in a way that meant business, and in a very short time I’d explained matters to the doctor. We agreed between us that the heat and the strain of coming back to the desolate home might work upon Bob in a fashion that, coupled with the effect of his old wound, would bring on bad results. So we arranged that the doctor should follow, in about a quarter of an hour, and drop in at Bob’s house as if by accident. It was a clumsy sort of scheme, I must confess, but it was the best that I could think of under the circumstances.
“Bob and I drove on. When we reached the house, he tried to unlock the door, but his hand shook so pitifully that I took the key from him, and let him in. The house was hot and close, and the air musty with the damp of long disuse. It was a mournful home-coming, and I felt that it couldn’t help doing harm of some sort to poor Bob.
“We went about from room to room. I opened a window here and there, for though the outside air was torrid anything seemed preferable to the closeness of those long untenanted walls. Bob moved in a dazed sort of way, as if he were walking in a dream. I’d tried to find out if he had any definite object in coming, but he answered me incoherently, and I gave up my questioning.
“We’d been there for a full quarter of an hour when the door-bell rang. It sounded queerly, that tinkling peal in the silence of the deserted house. Bob jumped as if he’d been struck, when he heard the bell. ‘What’s that?’ he said nervously.
“‘I’ll go to the door,’ says I, knowing well enough what it meant. ‘Thank you,’ said Bob; ‘if it isn’t too much bother. I don’t care about seeing any of the neighbors just yet. I’ll run upstairs for a second, and you can call me when the coast’s clear.’
“I opened the door, and there stood the doctor. ‘Hello, Elliott!’ he sang out, in a purposely loud voice, ‘You here? I happened to be passing, and noticed that the windows were open. Has the major come back?’ He stepped into the hall, and I closed the door behind him. ‘Yes, he turned up to-day,’ said I, also very loudly and distinctly. ‘He’ll be glad to see you. Funny coincidence, your dropping in on us this way. Sort of regimental reunion, eh? We’ll have to—’
“I stopped right there. A pistol shot rang out in one of the upper chambers, and after it came the sound of a heavy fall. ‘God! we’re too late,’ gasped the doctor. But he rushed for the stairs without an instant’s hesitation, and I tore up after him.
“Poor old Bob was lying on his face, in the room that had been his wife’s. His old army revolver lay smoking beside him, where it had fallen when he dropped. The blood was streaming from his head, and the first horrified glance showed me that the track of the bullet almost exactly followed the scar left by the splinter of shell that had bowled him over years before.
“The doctor went down upon his knees. Rapidly examining the bleeding wound, he looked up at me and said grimly, ‘This is bad business, Captain, bad business. But he’s failed in his undertaking. Nerves must have gone back on him. That was a glancing shot: it didn’t penetrate.’ He rapidly ran his eye around the room. ‘See where it went?’ he said, pointing to a ragged break in the plastering.
“We lifted Bob from the floor and laid him on the bed. The doctor went to work and stopped the bleeding, talking softly to me all the while. ‘I don’t like it at all,’ he said. ‘He’ll not die from this, but I’m in doubt about the effect it’ll have on his brain. It’s a nasty shock for a man in his over-wrought condition. Queer, isn’t it, that I should be patching up the same place that I worked over so long ago? He’s in for brain fever, poor devil! It’s a hard thing to say, Elliott, but I’m not sure that he wouldn’t have been luckier if his lead had gone straight in.’