She crushed the paper in her hand, and the two stood looking at each other, stupefied by the blow.
“I am going to him,” said Robert.
“And I must go home,” whispered the girl. “He always said that Pluto would be the death of him.”
They went down the stairs together without exchanging a word. Orange walked with her to St. James's Square. Neither could speak. On parting, she faltered,—
“Let me know ... how he is....”
CHAPTER XXIV
Lord Reckage had been carried through the hall of Almouth House, but not up the famous staircase of which he was so proud. He looked at it as they bore him to the library, and although he was still in a kind of stupor, the terrified servants could read in his eyes the certain knowledge that he would never behold the marble walls or the portraits of his ancestors again.
“Are you in pain, my lord? is your lordship in pain?” sobbed the housekeeper. His features were injured and his face was perfectly pallid—so much changed that he could not have been immediately recognised. Four doctors—one of them a passer-by at the time of the accident—had assembled. They found one shoulder was severely injured, and the right collar-bone broken. He complained of great pain in his side.
“Am I going to die, Sir Thomas?” said he.