Page:Daskam Bacon--Whom the gods destroy.djvu/228

 the man chained to the bed, and he dropped for miles into a deep, black gulf."

There was a dead silence in the room. No one dared to speak. The stranger's voice had quavered and broken, and in a hoarse whisper he said, rising and stumbling to the door while they made way for him silently:

"And when he knew his friends again, Darby had been buried a long time. Joan did not know whether a broken neck is so much worse than anything else in the world. He hadn't any curiosity about the mill—he didn't care to hear the details of how they burned it to the ground. Perhaps after a while he will be too tired to contradict ignorant people. But he thinks—he has said, that when a man has not slept five hours in a week, nor spoken for days together without agony, much may be forgiven him in the line of intolerance of other people's ignorance—a blessed ignorance gentlemen, a blessed ignorance."

The door closed behind him and the men drew a long breath. No one turned out the gas and it