"Yes, that's me, John Mapleson, number 556, sir. Keeping step, ain't I? One, two! One, two!" Again he moved slightly.
Then Varick understood. In his dream, whatever it was, John Mapleson lived over again his life in prison. And Varick now realized, too, that he would not live it over very much longer. He gave the little man one more glance, then went hurrying down the stairs to Mrs. Tilney's door. The doctor had come immediately. One look at Mr. Mapleson told him the story, and in haste a nurse was summoned. Before midnight she was installed—a young, pleasant-faced girl, pretty in her crisp blue gingham dress and white cap and apron.
For two hours now Mrs. Tilney had been running up and down the stairs to Mr. Mapleson's door. She did not enter, however, until she had made sure the nurse had all she needed. Then she came in quietly and, with both hands resting on the foot piece of the little man's bed, Mrs. Tilney looked down at him. He was still unconscious. Varick, after a single glance at her, turned away.
"Good-by, John," said Mrs. Tilney and that was all. The words came from her like a croak. One had only to glance at the gaunt, unlovely face to read in it all that went with that farewell. Godspeed she gave Mr. Mapleson, and God, one can be very sure, heard her. Varick followed her into the hall.
"Just what did that woman say—the one that came to the telephone?" he asked.
A single tear, the solitary expression of her feeling, stood in Mrs. Tilney's eye, and as she answered him she dried it with a corner of her sleeve.
"A servant answered," she replied—"a woman. What she said was that Bab couldn't come to the phone."
"Couldn't?" echoed Varick. "Do you think she really got the message?"
"I don't know," Mrs. Tilney answered. She gazed at Varick fixedly through her spectacles, then, as if she guessed the question in his mind, she added: "If Bab got that message Bab will come."