“But where were the servants, my dear? Surely you are not required, in your brother's house, to perform such menial services as taking food and medicine to a sick vagrant.”
“Winston had forbidden them to go near the room. I wish I had gone up earlier. I might have been the means of saving a life which, however worthless it may seem to us, must be of value to some one.”
“Is he so far gone?”
The inquiry was hoarsely whispered, and the speaker leaned back in her fauteuil, a spark of fierce eagerness in her dilated eyes, Mabel, in her own anxiety, did not consider overstrained solicitude in behalf of a disreputable stranger. She had more sympathy with it than with the relapse into apparent nonchalance that succeeded her repetition of the doctor's report.
“He does not think the unfortunate wretch will revive, even temporarily, then?” commented the lady, conventionally compassionate, playing with her ringed fingers, turning her diamond solitaire in various directions to catch the firelight. “How unlucky he should have strayed upon our grounds! Was he on his way to the village?”
“Who can say? Not he, assuredly. He has not spoken a coherent word. Dr. Ritchie thinks he will never be conscious again.”
“I am afraid the event will mar our holiday gayeties to some extent, stranger though he is!” deplored the hostess. “Some people are superstitious about such things. His must have been the spectral visage I saw at the window. I was sure it was that of a white man although Winston tried, to persuade me to the contrary.”
“It is dreadful!” ejaculated Mabel energetically. “He, poor homeless wayfarer, perishing with cold and want in the very light of our summer-like rooms; getting his only glimpse of the fires that would have brought back vitality to his freezing body through closed windows! Then to be hunted down by dogs, and locked up by more unfeeling men, as if he were a ravenous beast, instead of a suffering fellow-mortal! I shall always feel as if I were, in some measure, chargeable with his death—should he die. Heaven forgive us our selfish thoughtlessness, our criminal disregard of our brother's life!”
“I understood you to say there was no hope!” interrupted Mrs. Aylett.
“So Dr. Ritchie declares. But I cannot bear to believe it!”