So that when the major finally opened his eyes from the big leather couch, he looked on the faces of two of his oldest friends. Recollection and understanding seemed to come at once. “Well—Southall?” The doctor’s hand closed over the white one on the settee. He did not answer, but his chin was quivering and he was winking fast. “How long?” asked the major after a lengthy minute. “Maybe—maybe an hour, Bristow. Maybe not.” The major winced and shut his eyes, but when the doctor, reaching swiftly for a phial on the table, turned again, it was to find that look once more on him, now in yearning appeal. “Southall,” he said, [Pg 387]“send for Judith. I—I must see her. There’s time.” The judge started up. “I’ll bring her,” he said, and his voice had all the tenderness of a woman’s. “My carriage is at the door and with those horses she ought to be here in twenty minutes.” He leaned over the couch. “Bristow,” he said, “would you—would you like me to send for the rector?” The major smiled, a little wistfully, and shook his head. He lay silent for a while after the judge had gone out—he seemed housing his strength—while the ormolu clock on the desk ticked ominously on, and the doctor busied himself with the glasses beside him. Presently he said huskily: “You’ve had a bad fall, Bristow. You were dizzy, I reckon.” “Dizzy!” echoed the major with feeble asperity. “It was Greef King.” “Greef King! Good God!” “He was hiding behind the screen. He struck me with something. He swore at his trial he’d get me. I was—a fool not to have remembered his time was out.” A look, wolf-like and grim, had sprung into the doctor’s face. His eyes searched the room, and he crossed the floor and picked up something from the rug. He looked at it a moment, then thrust it hastily into his breast pocket. [Pg 388] “I—remember now. It was a pistol. He snapped it twice, but it missed fire.” “He can’t hide where we’ll not find him!” The doctor spoke with low but terrible energy. “Not that I care—myself,” said the major difficultly. “But I reckon he’d better be settled with, or he’ll—be killing some one worth while one of these days.” A big tear suddenly loosed itself from the doctor’s eyelid and rolled down his cheek, and he turned hastily away. “There’s no call to feel bad,” said the major gruffly. “I’ve sort of been a thorn-in-the-flesh to you, Southall. We always rowed, somehow, and yet—” The doctor choked and cleared his throat. “I reckon,” the major murmured with a faint smile, “you won’t get quite so much fun out of Chalmers—and the rest. They never did rise to you like I did.” A little later he asked for the restorative. “Ten minutes gone,” he said then. “Chalmers ought to be at Rosewood by now ... what a fool way to go—like this. But it wasn’t—apoplexy, Southall, anyway.”