Charley had forced me to change the subject; but I contrived to make the change not very satisfactory to him. “By the way,” I began, “what were you and the charming Alice saying to one another on your way from the landing to-day?”
Charley laid his halt-filled pipe on the table and gave a frightful yawn. “Let’s go to bed,” said he, and immediately began to doff his clothes with surprising swiftness.
“Two bodies,” said I, striking a match, “cannot”—Charley kicked off one boot—“occupy the same space”—off flew the other; “but, as Sir William hath well put it,—or was it some other fellow?”—and leaning against the end of the mantel-piece, and poising myself on my elbow, I assumed a thoughtful attitude,—“two bodies are sometimes fond of being very close together. Why this sudden and uncontrollable somnolency? Were we not to have another pipe?” But not another word could I get out of Charley; and nearly four years passed by before he gave me the account (which I will now lay before the reader) of what he saw that day.
The Don, as we know, had escorted Mrs. Poythress from the landing at the foot of the lawn to the house, and had gone immediately to his room. As she leaned upon his arm, he had seemed to her to be tremulous; and a certain disorder in his features as he left the parlor had led her to fear that he was not well; having, as she surmised, given himself an undue wrench in his efforts to arrest her fall. Then, when the Don had failed to put in an appearance at dinner, Charley had gone in person to his room. To a gentle tap there was no reply, and successively louder knocks eliciting no response, a vague sense of dread crept over him, and his hand shook as he turned the knob and entered the room. “Great God!” cried Charley, stopping short, as he saw the Don stretched diagonally across the bed, his face buried in a pillow. There he lay, still as death. Was he dead? Charley hurried to the bedside with agitated strides, and leaning over the prostrate figure, with lips apart, intently watched and listened for signs of life. “Thank God!” breathed Charley. For reply the Don, with a sudden movement, threw back his right arm obliquely across his motionless body, and held out his open hand. The released pillow fell. It was wetted with tears. Charley clasped the offered hand with a sympathetic pressure that seemed quite to unnerve the Don; for the iron grasp of his moist hand was tempered by a grateful tenderness, and convulsive undulations again and again shook his stalwart frame. For a while neither spoke.
“You will be down to dinner presently, I hope?”
The Don nodded, and Charley crossed the room and poured out some water and moved some towels in an aimless sort of way.
“I’ll go down now; come as soon as you can.”
Another nod.
Charley moved, half on tiptoe, to the door, and placing his hand on the knob, turned and looked at the Don. A sudden impulse seized him as he saw the strong man lying there on his face, his arm still extended along his back; and hurrying to the bedside, he bent over him, and taking the open hand in both his, with one fervent squeeze released it and hastened out of the room. But he had not reached the door before there broke upon his ear a sound that made him shiver.
It was a sob.