The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Lifted Bandage, by Mary Raymond Shipman
Andrews

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Title: The Lifted Bandage

Author: Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

Release Date: May 24, 2005 [eBook #15894]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFTED BANDAGE***

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THE LIFTED BANDAGE

by

MARY RAYMOND SHIPMAN ANDREWS

Author of "The Perfect Tribute," etc.

New York
Charles Scribner's Sons

1910

The man let himself into his front door and, staggering lightly, like a
drunken man, as he closed it, walked to the hall table, and mechanically
laid down his hat, but still wearing his overcoat turned and went into
his library, and dropped on the edge of a divan and stared out through
the leaded panes of glass across the room facing him. The grayish skin
of his face seemed to fall in diagonal furrows, from the eyes, from the
nose, from the mouth. He sat, still to his finger-tips, staring.

He was sitting so when a servant slipped in and stood motionless a
minute, and went to the wide window where the west light glared through
leafless branches outside, and drew the shades lower, and went to the
fireplace and touched a match. Wood caught and crackled and a cheerful
orange flame flew noisily up the chimney, but the man sitting on the
divan did not notice. The butler waited a moment, watching, hesitating,
and then:

"Have you had lunch, sir?" he asked in a tentative, gentle voice.

The staring eyes moved with an effort and rested on the servant's face.
"Lunch?" he repeated, apparently trying to focus on the meaning of the
word. "Lunch? I don't know, Miller. But don't bring anything."

With a great anxiety in his face Miller regarded his master. "Would you
let me t