“Must you read to-day, sir?”
Mr. Stone looked at him with anger.
“Why not?” he said.
“You are hardly strong enough.”
Mr. Stone raised his manuscript.
“We are three days behind;” and very slowly he began dictating: “'Bar-ba-rous ha-bits in those days, such as the custom known as War—-'” His voice died away; it was apparent that his elbows, leaning on the desk, alone prevented his collapse.
Hilary moved the chair, and, taking him beneath the arms, lowered him gently into it.
Noticing that he was seated, Mr. Stone raised his manuscript and read on: “'—-were pursued regardless of fraternity. It was as though a herd of horn-ed cattle driven through green pastures to that Gate, where they must meet with certain dissolution, had set about to prematurely gore and disembowel each other, out of a passionate devotion to those individual shapes which they were so soon to lose. So men—tribe against tribe, and country against country—glared across the valleys with their ensanguined eyes; they could not see the moonlit wings, or feel the embalming airs of brotherhood.'”
Slower and slower came his sentences, and as the last word died away he was heard to be asleep, breathing through a tiny hole left beneath the eave of his moustache. Hilary, who had waited for that moment, gently put the manuscript on the desk, and beckoned to the girl. He did not ask her to his study, but spoke to her in the hall.
“While Mr. Stone is like this he misses you. You will come, then, at present, please, so long as Hughs is in prison. How do you like your room?”