"He has plenty of courage, Hartley! If nothing happens to him to-night
he'll finish Bobby in the morning. That mustn't happen. He mustn't go to
jail. You understand. Things would never be the same for him again."
Graham spread his hands.
"What am I to do? I might go to New York and get after these
people myself."
"Don't leave the Cedars," Bobby begged, "until he does arrest me.
There'll be plenty of time for the New York end then. I've no faith in
it. Watch Carlos if you want, but most important of all, find
out--somehow you've got to find out--what my grandfather was afraid of."
Graham nodded.
"And if it does come to an arrest, Bobby, you're not to say a word to
anybody without my advice. You ought to get to bed now. You must have
rest, and Katherine, too. Don't listen to-night, Katherine, for messages
from across the court."
"I'll try," she said, "but, Hartley, I wish that man wasn't there. I wish
no one was in that room."
She took Bobby's hand.
"Good-night, Bobby, and don't give up hope. We'll do something. Somehow
we'll pull you through."
Bobby waited, hoping that Graham would offer to share his room with him.
For, as he had said earlier, the prospect of going to sleep, of losing
control of his thoughts and actions, appalled him. Yet such an offer, he
realized, must impress Graham as delicate, as an indication that he
really doubted Bobby's innocence, as a sort of spying. He wasn't
surprised, therefore, when Graham only said:
"I'll be in the next room, Bobby. If you're restless or need me you've
only to knock on the wall."
Bobby didn't leave the library with them. The warmth with which Katherine
had just filled him faded as he watched her go out side by side with
Graham. Her hand was on Graham's arm. There was, he fancied, in her eyes
an emotion deeper than gratitude or friendship. He sighed as the door
closed behind them. He was himself largely to blame for that situation.
His very revolt against its imminence had hastened its shaping.
He walked anxiously to the table. He had remembered the medicine Doctor
Groom had prepared for him that afternoon to make him sleep. He hadn't
taken it then. If it remained where he had left it, which was likely
enough in the disordered state of the household, he would drink it now.
Reinforced by his complete weariness, it ought to send him into a sleep
profound enough to drown any possible abnormal impulses of
unconsciousness.
The glass was there. He drained it, and stood for a time looking at the
pinkish sediment in the bottom. That was all right for to-night, but
afterward--he couldn't shrink perpetually from sleep. He shrugged his
shoulders, remembering it would make little difference what he did in his
sleep when they had him behind prison bars. Perhaps this would be his
last night of freedom.
He found Paredes still in the hall. The Panamanian, with languid
gestures, continued to play his solitaire. His box of cigarettes was
much reduced.
"I thought you were tired, Carlos."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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