Wolfe's eyes answered Mitchell, not the Doctor.
“Oh-h! But what a mistake you have made, my fine fellow! You have given no sign of starvation to the body. It is strong,—terribly strong. It has the mad, half-despairing gesture of drowning.”
Wolfe stammered, glanced appealingly at Mitchell, who saw the soul of the thing, he knew. But the cool, probing eyes were turned on himself now,—mocking, cruel, relentless.
“Not hungry for meat,” the furnace-tender said at last.
“What then? Whiskey?” jeered Kirby, with a coarse laugh.
Wolfe was silent a moment, thinking.
“I dunno,” he said, with a bewildered look. “It mebbe. Summat to make her live, I think,—like you. Whiskey ull do it, in a way.”
The young man laughed again. Mitchell flashed a look of disgust somewhere,—not at Wolfe.
“May,” he broke out impatiently, “are you blind? Look at that woman's face! It asks questions of God, and says, 'I have a right to know,' Good God, how hungry it is!”
They looked a moment; then May turned to the mill-owner:—