“I do,” said Montague.
“It isn’t far,” said the old man. “Perhaps I had best go there.”—And then he hesitated for a moment; and catching Montague by the arm, and pulling him toward him, whispered, “Tell me—you-you won’t tell—”
Montague, comprehending what he meant, answered, “It will be between us.” At the same time he felt a new thrill of revulsion for this most miserable old creature.
They lifted him into the car; and because they delayed long enough to lay a blanket over the body of the chauffeur, he asked peevishly why they did not start. During the ten or fifteen minutes’ trip he sat clinging to Montague, shuddering with fright every time they rounded a turn in the road.
They reached the Harrisons’ place; and the footman who opened the door was startled out of his studied impassivity by the sight of a big bundle of bearskin in Montague’s arms. “Send for Mrs. Harrison,” said Montague, and laid the bundle upon a divan in the hall. “Get a doctor as quickly as you can,” he added to a second attendant.
Mrs. Harrison came. “It’s Mr. Grimes,” said Montague; and then he heard a frightened exclamation, and turned and saw Laura Hegan, in a walking costume, fresh from the cold outside.
“What is it?” she cried. And he told her, as quickly as he could, and she ran to help the old man. Montague stood by, and later carried him upstairs, and waited below until the doctor came.
It was only when he set out for home again that he found time to think about Laura Hegan, and how beautiful she had looked in her furs. He wondered if it would always be his fate to meet her under circumstances which left her no time to be aware of his own existence.
At home he told about his adventure, and found himself quite a hero for the rest of the day. He was obliged to give interviews to several newspaper reporters, and to refuse to let one of them take his picture. Every one at the Devons’ seemed to know old Harry Grimes, and Montague thought to himself that if the comments of this particular group of people were a fair sample, the poor wretch was right in saying that he had not a friend in the world.
When he came downstairs the next morning, he found elaborate accounts of the accident in the papers, and learned that Grimes had nothing worse than a scalp wound and a severe shock. Even so, he felt it was incumbent upon him to pay a visit of inquiry, and rode over shortly before lunch.