"There's no doubt about it, and it's his only chance, I think. Just give him the news quietly when he awakes. Yes, he may have a glass of port before."
I lay still, but trembling under my covers. It had come at last. Oh, the shame of it! the sin of it!--I a common murderer. It was too much, and I tried to start up, but fell back weakly, and saw Paget sitting by the bed, smiling kindly at me.
"Not yet, old man--in a day or so. Take this port, will you?"
I drank it with an effort; but it warmed me and gave me strength.
"You're to be shipped home in a few days--lucky beggar! Wouldn't mind getting ill myself if I could get leave."
I smiled in spite of myself.
"That's right. Feeling better, I see. We had another interesting patient also, but he cleared out a week or so ago from hospital. It was that fellow Mazarion. Remember him?"
"Mazarion!"
"Yes. Fell over the edge of a precipice and on to a ledge of rock. Got his fall broken somehow by the branches of a tree, and the wild raspberry bushes, or he'd have been in Kingdom Come--eh? What?"
"Thank God!" I felt a load lifted from my heart, the shadows had passed from my soul. I lay back, my eyes closed and a peace upon me. And then I prayed for the first time in many a long day, and whilst I prayed I fell once more asleep. There came to me in that sleep a dream of Nelly--of Nelly robed in white with a glory around her, and she smiled and beckoned me to come.