“I am cussed if I can make out what kind of a chap you are, anyhow!”
Earle smiled slightly at his evident perplexity, and the invalid continued:
“First, you hit a fellow a swinger on the back of the head that knocks the life out of him, and makes one think that the fury of seven Jupiters is concentrated in you; next, you shoot him with a revolver, and then turn around and nurse him as tender as a woman—I can’t make it out.”
“I did give you a heavy blow that night in the hotel, I admit; the case was desperate, and I knew I must not fail to lay you out the first time. If you had not escaped, I should have given you up to the authorities, and you would doubtless have been serving out your sentence now, instead of lying here. But you are wounded and suffering, you will probably, be sick a long time, and however much I may think you deserve punishment for your past crimes, your condition appeals to my humanity. As a sufferer, you are, instead of an enemy and a robber, my neighbor, my friend, and as such I shall treat you while you lie here,” Earle explained, and there was no mistaking the friendliness of his tones.
“Your neighbor! your friend!” Tom Drake repeated, in low, suppressed tones, and feeling almost as if he had got into a new world.
“Yes, just that; and now, to ease your mind and make you trust me, I will tell you that no one save the doctor, myself, and my servants, know what transpired last night, and no one else will know of the affair while you are sick here. Now go to sleep, if you can.”
Earle moved away without giving him a chance to reply, the man watching his retreating figure in stupid amazement.
CHAPTER XLII
TOM DRAKE’S TRUST
Tom Drake did have a hard time, as the physician predicted and Earle feared.
He paid dearly for his one night’s adventure within the walls of Wycliffe; and yet, perchance, the end will prove it to have been a “blessing in disguise.”