"Come in! I want to talk to you!" said Mrs. Aylett, beckoning Mabel

into her chamber, from the door of which she had hailed her. "Sit

down, my poor girl! You are white as a sheet with fatigue. I cannot

see why you should have been suffered to know anything about this

very disagreeable occurrence. And Emmeline has been telling me that

Mrs. Sutton actually let you go up into that Arctic room."

"It was my choice. Aunt Rachel went along to carry the light and to

keep me company. She would have dissuaded me from the enterprise if

she could," responded Mabel, sinking into the low, cushioned chair

before the fire, which the mistress of the luxurious apartment had

just wheeled forward for her, and confessing to herself, for the

first time, that she was chilly and very tired.

"But where were the servants, my dear? Surely you are not required,

in your brother's house, to perform such menial services as taking

food and medicine to a sick vagrant."

"Winston had forbidden them to go near the room. I wish I had gone

up earlier. I might have been the means of saving a life which,

however worthless it may seem to us, must be of value to some one."

"Is he so far gone?"

The inquiry was hoarsely whispered, and the speaker leaned back in

her fauteuil, a spark of fierce eagerness in her dilated eyes,

Mabel, in her own anxiety, did not consider overstrained solicitude

in behalf of a disreputable stranger. She had more sympathy with it

than with the relapse into apparent nonchalance that succeeded her

repetition of the doctor's report.

"He does not think the unfortunate wretch will revive, even

temporarily, then?" commented the lady, conventionally

compassionate, playing with her ringed fingers, turning her diamond

solitaire in various directions to catch the firelight. "How unlucky

he should have strayed upon our grounds! Was he on his way to the

village?"

"Who can say? Not he, assuredly. He has not spoken a coherent word.

Dr. Ritchie thinks he will never be conscious again."

"I am afraid the event will mar our holiday gayeties to some extent,

stranger though he is!" deplored the hostess. "Some people are

superstitious about such things. His must have been the spectral

visage I saw at the window. I was sure it was that of a white man

although Winston tried, to persuade me to the contrary."

"It is dreadful!" ejaculated Mabel energetically. "He, poor homeless

wayfarer, perishing with cold and want in the very light of our

summer-like rooms; getting his only glimpse of the fires that would

have brought back vitality to his freezing body through closed

windows! Then to be hunted down by dogs, and locked up by more

unfeeling men, as if he were a ravenous beast, instead of a

suffering fellow-mortal! I shall always feel as if I were, in some

measure, chargeable with his death--should he die. Heaven forgive us

our selfish thoughtlessness, our criminal disregard of our brother's

life!"




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