o
reply to a question at that distance, and when she let him in he made two
steps and dropped forward on the floor.

Lying there, he plucked at her skirts. She was shouting for help, but
with her ready apprehension of the pride in his character, she knew what
was meant by his broken whisper before she put her ear to his lips, and
she was silent, miserable sight as was his feeble efforts to rise on an
elbow that would not straighten.

His head was streaming with blood, and the stain was on his neck and
chest. He had one helpless arm; his clothes were torn as from a fierce
struggle.

"I'm quite sensible," he kept repeating, lest she should relapse into
screams.

"Lord love you for your spirit!" exclaimed the widow, and there they
remained, he like a winged eagle, striving to raise himself from time to
time, and fighting with his desperate weakness. His face was to the
ground; after a while he was still. In alarm the widow stooped over him:
she feared that he had given up his last breath; but the candle-light
showed him shaken by a sob, as it seemed to her, though she could scarce
believe it of this manly fellow. Yet it proved true; she saw the very
tears. He was crying at his helplessness.

"Oh, my darling boy!" she burst out; "what have they done to ye? the
cowards they are! but do now have pity on a woman, and let me get some
creature to lift you to a bed, dear. And don't flap at me with your hand
like a bird that's shot. You're quite, quite sensible, I know; quite
sensible, dear; but for my sake, Robert, my Harry's good friend, only for
my sake, let yourself be a carried to a clean, nice bed, till I get Dr.
Bean to you. Do, do."

Her entreaties brought on a succession of the efforts to rise, and at
last, getting round on his back, and being assisted by the widow, he sat
up against the wall. The change of posture stupified him with a
dizziness. He tried to utter the old phrase, that he was sensible, but
his hand beat at his forehead before the words could be shaped.

"What pride is when it's a man!" the widow thought, as he recommenced the
grievous struggle to rise on his feet; now feeling them up to the knee
with a questioning hand, and pausing as if in a reflective wonder, and
then planting them for a spring that failed wretchedly; groaning and
leaning backward, lost in a fit of despair, and again beginning, patient
as an insect imprisoned in a circle.

The widow bore with his man's pride, until her nerves b