“Oh, I don’t know; I want to go home and see Geraldine.”
“Go home, then, and be——hanged,” the Judge finally added, speaking the last word very naturally, as if that were what he had all the time intended to say.
With one scornful glance at Lilian, who, as Lawrence was borne past her door, covered her face with her hands and moaned: “Oh, I carn’t look at him,” Mildred saw that everything was made comfortable, and then all through the anxious, exciting hour which followed, she stood bravely by, doing whatever was necessary for her to do, and once, at her own request, placing her warm lips next to the cold ones of the unconscious man, and sending her life-breath far down into the lungs, which gave back only a gurgling sound, and Mildred, when she heard it, turned away, whispering:
“He is dead!”
But Lawrence was not dead; and when the night shadows were stealing into the room, he gave signs that life was not extinct. Mildred was the first to discover it, and her cry of joy went ringing through the house, and penetrated to the room where Lilian still cowered upon the floor. But Lilian mistook the cry, and grasping the dress of the little child, who had started to leave her, she sobbed:
“Don’t go,—don’t leave me alone,—it’s getting dark, and I’m afraid of ghosts!”
“Confounded fool!” muttered the Judge, who passed the door in time to hear the remark, and who felt strongly tempted to hurl at her head the brandy bottle he carried in his hand. “It wouldn’t make any more impression though, than on a bat of cotton wool,” he said, and he hurried on to the chamber where Lawrence Thornton was enduring all the pangs of a painful death.
But he was saved, and when at last the fierce struggle was over, and the throes of agony had ceased, he fell away to sleep, and the physician bade all leave the room except Mildred, who must watch him while he slept.
“Will he live? Is he past all danger?” she asked, and when the physician answered, “Yes,” she said: “Then I must go to Oliver. Lilian will sit with Mr. Thornton.”
“But is her face a familiar one? Will he be pleased to see her here when he wakes?” the doctor asked, and Mildred answered sadly: