"I am afraid," I wrote to Burgess, "the odds are against our seeing him again."
Then I corrected the proofs and dropped them into the letter-box in the passage. My uncle had left the flat at half-past eight for his turn of duty as a Special Constable, and in his absence I settled down to deal with the month's accounts from the hospital in Princes Gardens. It was a cold night, with a wind that sent gusts of smoke blowing into the room; I shivered and coughed for a while, but the draught at my back was unbearable, and I was jumping up to close the door when a low voice immediately behind me said:
"You left the door open, so I thought I'd walk in."
O'Rane was standing within a yard of me. Thinner even than when I met him first as a half-starved waif at Melton, white-cheeked and lined, with his skin drawn tight as drum parchment over the bones of his face, but alive and smiling, with his great black eyes fixed on my face, he grasped his hat with one hand while the other rested on the handle of the door.
"I've just been telling Burgess you were dead," I cried.
"Infernal cheek!" he answered, with a faint breathless laugh. "Steady on with my hand, old man, it's bandaged! I've just come up from Melton. You might ask me to come in, George."
I looked at him and drew a long breath.
"Thank Heaven, Raney!"
"May I ... I say, go gently with me!" He leant against the door, panting with exertion. "Did you come here to dodge me? I went straight from Waterloo to your house, but there was a reek of iodoform.... I've had my fill of iodoform lately. I want you to give me a bed, George, and help me out of my coat and put me into a comfortable chair."
"Where were you wounded?" I asked, as I took his coat and pressed him into a chair by the fire.