as the candle flamed up steadily in the comparatively still air of
the ceiled apartment. The miserable coat was buttoned up to his
chin, and the shreds of a coarse woollen comforter, torn from his
throat at his capture, still hung about his shoulders. His clothes
were sodden with wet, as Harrison had said, and the solitary
pretence at rendering him comfortable for the night, had been the
act of a negro, who contemptuously flung an old blanket across his
nether limbs before leaving him to his lethargic slumbers. He had
not moved since they tossed him, like a worthless sack, upon this
sorry resting-place, but lay an unsightly huddle of arms, legs, and
head, such as was never achieved, much less continued, by any one
save a drunken man or a corpse. Mabel ended the awed silence.

"This is torpor--not sleep, nor yet death," she said, without
recoiling from the pitiful wreck.

Indeed, as she spoke, she bent to feel his pulse; held the emaciated
wrist in her warm fingers until she could determine whether the
feeble stroke were a reality, or a trick of the imagination.

"Dr. Ritchie should see him immediately. He is in the smoking-room.
If you call him out, it will excite less remark than if I were to do
it. Don't let Winston guess why you want him," were her directions
to her aunt, uttered quickly, but distinctly.

"Yon will not stay here! At least, go into the hall! What will the
doctor think?"

"I shall remain where I am. The poor creature is too far gone to
presume upon my condescension," with a faint sarcastic emphasis.