“Exactly!” said the Goblin—“How the devil and why the devil! Only the devil knows!”
Josiah groaned, and then the overpowering dumbness that had seized him before caught him again in its paralysing power. Stricken mute himself, he was nevertheless forced to listen with the closest attention to all that passed around him. And when Pitt spoke, the sound of that equable familiar voice sent a new and violent shock through his already racked nervous system.
“Mr. McNason is a man of iron,”—said Pitt—“There’s no doubt about it! In fact he’s harder than any metal, for metal can be made to melt, and he can’t!”
The man in the invalid chair moved restlessly.
“Did he remember me at all?—did you remind him?—” he murmured.
“Yes, Willie, I did! I even recalled the days when you used to carry his little son on your shoulder round to see the works—and I said, ‘Dove was one of the smartest men in your employ, and brought valuable custom to the firm.’ But it was all no use—no use!” He paused and then addressed himself gently to the woman who knelt by her husband’s side. “I am sure, Mrs. Dove, you believe that I have done my best?”
“Indeed, indeed, I know you have!” she answered earnestly—“And,—after all—I never had much hope. Mr. McNason must have endless claims upon his purse—and memory! It is so seldom one finds a very very rich man who cares to help little outside troubles like ours—” Here her voice trembled dangerously, and she ceased.
Willie Dove sighed a little wearily.
“Ah well!” he said—“I did my best for him in my day! And I thought he might possibly be disposed to do me a good turn now. It’s true I haven’t so many years before me, but I’ve got some working power left if I could only get well——”
“I’m afraid it’s my fault, Will!” said his wife piteously. “You could, of course, go to the Hospital and doctors would attend to you there—but oh! I couldn’t bear it!—I couldn’t bear it!” And here her self-control gave way, and she began to sob—“I couldn’t bear to see you taken away from me after all the years we have spent so happily together! I couldn’t bear to think of you ill, and in a place where I could only get at you at stated times, with strangers always about you! It is very foolish of me and perhaps very wrong—but I—I cannot help it!”