"I'll promise nothing," said Pickering softly to himself, the moment the door closed, and slipping neatly out of bed, he tiptoed over and turned the key in the lock. "There," snapping his fingers in the air, "as if I'd have that idiot of a doctor around me." Then he proceeded to dress himself very rapidly, but with painstaking care.
"I'm all right," and he gave himself a final shake; "that doctor would have made a fool of me and kept me in bed, like enough, for a week. And with that Jack Loughead here!" He gave a swift glance into the cracked looking-glass hanging over the high shelf, and with another pull at his necktie-end, unlocked the door and went out.
"Halloo!"
"Oh, beg pardon!" A long figure that had just scaled the stairs, came suddenly up against Pickering, stalking along the narrow hall.
"How d'ye do?" said Pickering quite jauntily, and extending the tips of his fingers; "just got here, I take it, Loughead?"
"Yes," returned Jack Loughead. Pickering was made no more steady in his mind, nor on his feet, by seeing the other's evident uneasiness, but he covered it up by a careless "Well, I suppose you have come to look up your uncle, hey?"
"Yes, oh, yes," said Jack, "of course, my uncle. Well, were any of the others hurt?"
"Yes; one woman was killed." Pickering could not trust himself to mention Polly's broken arm yet.
Jack Loughead's face carried the proper amount of sympathy. "No one of your party was hurt, I believe?" he said quickly.
"Oh, look us over, and see for yourself," said Pickering, beginning to feel faintish, and as if he would like to sit down. And then the door at the end of the hall was opened, and out came all the others and the doctor, who was saying, "I'll just step in and look at the young man, though he's doing well enough—oh, my gracious!"