f _Truth_, and two of Zola's novels, to make room for the heavy,
unconscious head.

Errington and Lorimer stood at the doorway, completely overcome by the
suddenness of the event--they had followed the bearers up-stairs almost
mechanically,--exchanging no word or glance by the way,--and now they
watched in almost breathless suspense while a surgeon who was present,
gently turned back the cover that hid the injured man's features and
exposed them to full view. Was _that_ Sir Francis? that blood-smeared,
mangled creature?--_that_ the lascivious dandy,--the disciple of
no-creed and self-worship? Errington shuddered and averted his gaze from
that hideous face,--so horribly contorted,--yet otherwise deathlike in
its rigid stillness. There was a grave hush. The surgeon still bent over
him--touching here, probing there, with tenderness and skill,--but
finally he drew back with a hopeless shake of his head.

"Nothing can be done," he whispered. "Absolutely nothing!"

At that moment Sir Francis stirred,--he groaned and opened his
eyes;--what terrible eyes they were, filled with that look of intense
anguish, and something worse than anguish,--fear--frantic fear--coward
fear--fear that was almost more overpowering than his bodily suffering.

He stared wildly at the little group assembled--strange faces, so far as
he could make them out, that regarded him with evident compassion,--what
--what was all this--what did it mean? Death? No, no! he thought madly,
while his brain reeled with the idea--death? What _was_ death?--darkness,
annihilation, blackness--all that was horrible--unimaginable! God! he
would _not_ die! God!--who _was_ God? No matter--he would live;--he
would struggle against this heaviness,--this coldness--this pillar of
ice in which he was being slowly frozen--frozen--frozen!--inch by--inch!
He made a furious effort to move, and uttered a scream of agony, stabbed
through and through by torturing pain.

"Keep still!" said the surgeon pityingly.

Sir Francis heard him not. He wrestled with his bodily anguish till the
perspiration stood in large drops on his forehead. He raised himself,
gasping for breath, and glared about him like a trapped beast of prey.

"Give me brandy!" he muttered chokingly. "Quick--quick! Are you going to
let me die like a dog?--damn you all!"

The effort to move,--to speak,--exhausted his sinking strength--his
throat rattled,--he clenched his fists and made as though he would
spring off hi