Part 34 (2/2)

That night when the evening papers came out with all their plenitude of bad news (for we had pleased Watson by dying on the evening papers'

time), it was a dark moment for us. Jim lay silent and unmoving, as if all his ebullient energy had gone forever. The physician omitted the dressing of his wound, because, he said, he feared the patient was not strong enough to bear it: and this, as well as the strange semi-stupor of the sufferer, frightened me. Jim had said little, and most of his words had been of the trivial things of the sick-room. Only once did he refer to the great affairs in which we had been for so long engrossed.

”What day is this?” he asked.

”Friday,” said I, ”the twenty-first.”

”By this time,” said he feebly, ”we must be pretty well shot to rags.”

”Never mind about that,” said I, holding his hands in mine. ”Never mind, Jim!”

”Some of those gophers,” said he, after a while, ”used to learn to ...

rub their noses ... in the dirt ... and always stick their heads up--outside the snare!”

”Yes,” said I, ”I remember. Go to sleep, old man!”

I thought him delirious, and he knew and resented it; being evidently convinced that he had just made a wise remark. It touched me to hear him, even in his extremity, return to those boyhood days when we trapped and hunted and fished together. He saw my pitying look.

”I'm all right,” said he; but he said no more.

The nurse came in, and told me that Mrs. Barslow wished to see me in the library. I went down, and found Josie and Alice together.

”I got a letter from--from Mr. Cornish,” said she, ”telling me that he was returning from Chicago to-night, and was coming to see me. I ran over, because--and told mamma to say that I couldn't see him.”

”See him by all means,” said I with some bitterness. ”You should make it a point to see him. Mr. Cornish is a success. He alone of us all has shown real greatness.”

And it dawned upon me, as I said it, what Jim had meant by his reference to the gopher which learns to stick its head up ”outside the snare.”

”I want to ask you,” said Josie, ”is it all true--what was in the paper to-night about all of you, Mr. Hinckley and yourself, and--all of you having failed?”

”It is only a part of the truth,” I replied. ”We are ruined absolutely.”

She said nothing by way of condolence, and uttered no expressions of regret or sympathy. She was apparently in a state of suppressed excitement, and started at sounds and movements.

”Is Mr. Elkins very ill?” said she at length.

”So ill,” said Alice, ”that unless he rallies soon, we shall look for the worst.”

No more at this than at the other ill news did Josie express any regret or concern. She sat with her fingers clasped together, gazing before her at the fire in the grate, as if making some deep and abstruse calculation. But when the door-bell rang, she started and listened attentively, as the servant went to the door, and then returned to us.

”A gentleman, Mr. Cornish, to see Miss Trescott,” said the maid. ”And he says he must see her for a moment.”

”Alice,” said Josie, under her breath, ”you go, please! Say to him that I cannot see him--now! Oh, why did he follow me here?”

”Josie,” said Alice dramatically, ”you don't mean to say that you are afraid of this man! Are you?”

”No, no!” said the girl doubtfully and distressfully; ”but it's so hard to say 'No' to him! If you only knew all, Alice, you wouldn't blame me--and you'd go!”

”If you're so far gone--under his influence,” said Alice, ”that you can't trust yourself to say 'No,' Josephine Trescott, go, in Heaven's name, and say 'Yes,' and be the wife of a millionaire--and a traitor and scoundrel!”

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