"There, there,
daughter," he returned gently. "A little thing like that won't come
between you and me."
With his arm still about her, he drew her slowly to the bedside, and
stood looking down on the dying woman and the old cripple, who hovered
over her with the stained towel in her hand.
"I don't even know her name," he said, and immediately afterward, "She
must have had a hell of a life!" Though there was a wholesome pity in
his voice, it was without the weakness of sentimentality. He had done
what he could, and he was not the kind to worry over events which he
could not change. For a few minutes he stood there in silence; then,
because it was impossible for his energetic nature to remain inactive in
an emergency, he exclaimed suddenly, "The doctor ought to be here!" and
turning away from the bed, went rapidly across the room and through the
half open door into the hall.
Outside the darkness was dissolving in a drab light which crept slowly
up above the roofs of the houses; and while they waited this light
filled the yard and the room and the passage beyond the door which
Gideon Vetch had not closed.
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