While Van Vernet thus soliloquizes over his startling discovery, we will follow the footsteps of Richard Stanhope.
He is walking away from the more bustling portion of the city, and turning into a quiet, home-like street, pauses before a long, trim-looking building, turns a moment to gaze about him in quest of possible observers, and then enters.
It is a hospital, watched over by an order of noble women, and affording every relief and comfort to the suffering ones within its walls.
Passing the offices and long wards, he goes on until he has reached a private room in the rear of the building. Here coolness and quiet reign, and a calm-faced woman is sitting beside a cot, upon which a sick man tosses and mutters feverishly. It is the ex-convict who was rescued from the Thieves’ Tavern by Stanhope, only a few nights ago.
“How is your patient?” queries the detective, approaching the bed and gazing down upon the man whom he has befriended.
“He has not long to live,” replies the nurse. “I am glad you are here, sir. In his lucid moments he asks for you constantly. His delirium will pass soon, I think, and he will have a quiet interval. I hope you will remain.”
“I will stay as long as possible,” Stanhope says, seating himself by the bed. “But I have not much time to spare to-night.”
The dying man is living his childhood over again. He mutters of rolling prairies, waving trees, sweeping storms, and pealing thunder. He laughs at the review of some pleasing scene, and then cries out in terror as some vision of horror comes before his memory.
And while he mutters, Richard Stanhope listens—at first idly, then curiously, and at last with eager intensity, bending forward to catch every word.