"
"No!" again said Dermot, as if his tongue refused to move. "Oh,
Lucy, Lucy, I cannot tell you!"
And he burst into a flood of tears, shaking, choking, even rending
him.
I stood, feeling as if turned to stone, and presently the words came
out in a sob, "Oh, Lucy, he is dead!" and, sinking on the nearest
seat, his tempest of grief was for the moment more frightful than the
tidings, which I could not take in, so impossible did the sudden
quenching of that glorious vitality seem. I began in some foolish
way to try to console him, as if it were a mere fancy. I brought him
a glass of water from the sideboard, and implored him to compose
himself, and tell me what made him say such terrible things, but he
wrung my hand and leant his head against me, as he groaned, "I tell
you, it is true. We buried him this morning. The noblest, dearest
friend that ever--"
"And you never told me! You never fetched me; I might have saved
him," was my cry; then, "Oh! why did you not?"
Then he told me that there had been no time, and how useless my
presence would have been. We sat on the sofa, and he gasped out
something of the sad story, though not by any means all that I
afterwards learnt from himself and from the Yollands, but enough to
make me feel the reality of the terrible loss. And I will tell the
whole here.
Left to himself, the dear fellow had no doubt forgotten all about
vaccination, or any peril to himself, for he never mentioned it to
Dermot, who only thought him anxious about Dora.
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