Probable?--Ah, well,
perhaps--perhaps. Which brought him back to his former contention, that
its inherent loneliness constitutes the bitterest sting of death.
Smiling, he quoted the ancient, divinely tender saying: "There is a child
in each one of us which cries at the dark."
While, in swift reaction, he yearned towards battle where amid the
fierce and bloody glory of the fight, souls of heroes troop forth
together, shouting, into everlasting day or--sceptical reason shaking a
sadly sage head once again--into everlasting night.
He stretched out his hand instinctively for the bell on the little table
at his elbow. Hordle answered his summons, grey of countenance from
alarm, anxiety, and broken rest.
"Let Miss Damaris know I shall be glad to see her when she is free to
come to me," he said.
And here, although our damsel's reputation for courage and resource may,
thereby, sustain some damage, I am constrained to state that while in the
sick-room Miss Felicia shone, Damaris gave off but a vacillating and
ineffective light.
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