Ingolby drank it without
protest and in silence. He was like one whose sense of life was
automatic and of an inner rather than an outer understanding. But when
he lay back on the pillow again, he said slowly:
"I want the Chief Constable to come here to-night at eight o'clock. It
will be dark then. He must come. It is important. Will you see to it,
Rockwell?"
He thrust out a hand as though to find Rockwell's, and there was a
gratitude and an appeal in the pressure of his fingers which went to
Rockwell's heart.
"All right, Chief. I'll have him here," Rockwell answered briskly, but
with tears standing in his eyes. Ingolby had, as it were, been stricken
out of the active, sentient, companionable world into a world where he
was alone, detached, solitary. His being seemed suspended in an
atmosphere of misery and helplessness.
"Blind! I am blind!" That was the phrase which kept beating with the
pulses in Ingolby's veins, that throbbed, and throbbed, and throbbed like
engines in a creaking ship which the storm was shaking and pounding in
the vast seas between the worlds. Here was the one incomprehensible,
stupefying fact: nothing else mattered.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142