To the mind of Ingolby came a hundred such reasons for breaking out of
life's enclosure, as the effect of the opiate Rockwell had given him wore
off, and he regained consciousness. As he did so, someone in the room
was telling of that intervention of Gabriel Druse and the Monseigneur at
the Orange funeral, which had saved the situation. At first he listened
to what was said--it was the nurse talking to Jim Beadle with no sharp
perception of the significance of the story; though it slowly pierced the
lethargy of his senses, and he turned over in the bed to face the
watchers.
"What time is it, Jim?" he asked heavily. They told him it was sunset.
"Is it quiet in both towns?" he asked after a pause. They told him that
it was.
"Any telegrams for me?" he asked.
There was an instant's hesitation. They had had no instructions on this
point, and they hardly knew what to say; but Jim's mind had its own
logic, and the truth seemed best to him now. He answered that there were
several wires, but that they "didn't amount to nothin'."
"Have they been opened?" Ingolby asked with a frown, half-raising
himself. It was hard to resign the old masterfulness and self-will.
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