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."