The words died on the senator's lips. So absorbed had he been in his momentous news, and solicitous over the result of his explanation, that his eye looked outward for the first time, and even then accidentally.
“Hilary!” he cried; “for God's sake, what's the matter? Are you sick?”
“Yes, Whitredge,” said Mr. Vane, slowly, “sick at heart.”
It was but natural that these extraordinary and incomprehensible words should have puzzled and frightened the senator more than ever.
“Your heart!” he repeated.
“Yes, my heart,” said Hilary.
The senator reached for the ice-water on the table.
“Here,” he cried, pouring out a glass, “it's only the heat—it's been a hard day—drink this.”
But Hilary did not raise his arm. The door opened others coming to congratulate Hilary Vane on the greatest victory he had ever won. Offices were secure once more, the feudal system intact, and rebels justly punished; others coming to make their peace with the commander whom, senseless as they were, they had dared to doubt.
They crowded past each other on the threshold, and stood grouped beyond the basswood table, staring—staring—men suddenly come upon a tragedy instead of a feast, the senator still holding the glass of water in a hand that trembled and spilled it. And it was the senator, after all, who first recovered his presence of mind. He set down the water, pushed his way through the group into the hall, where the tumult and the shouting die. Mr. Giles Henderson, escorted, is timidly making his way towards the platform to read his speech of acceptance of a willing bondage, when a voice rings out:—“If there is a physician in the house, will he please come forward?”