"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!"