Truly, as I had said to Morley, "One never knows in life."
I had killed him, a poor harmless, defenceless old man who had trusted me!
One thing after another had gradually pushed me on to this climax, all having their origin in those careless glances exchanged in the Sitka tea-shop.
They had thought I should die, too, all the people who had rushed into the room and found us that night. Myself unconscious, and the others dead.
The cold voice of a doctor had been the first I had heard as sense came back to me with the damp night air from the window blowing on my face:
"He's done for, I should say, you'd better take his depositions if he can speak."
I had opened my eyes and seen some men carrying out the body of Hop Lee and the tiny pliable form of dear little Suzee that I should never see or clasp again.
The landlord had come up ashy-pale and shaking, with a note-book in his hand, and had questioned and re-questioned me, and I had answered until I fainted again.
Next, after a black gap, I came to beneath the surgeon's probe which he was thrusting into my wound, as he would a fork into cold meat.
"He won't get through, I should think; he has too much fever," he was saying, in the regular callous professional voice.