Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/144

 "Nothing, sir," replied the guard.

"Nothing! Nothing!" echoed the little man sharply. "How nothing! Any of that scum down there"—he pointed to the six cots—"been making a disturbance, threatening this man that you're here to protect, doing anything to excite him, or anything like that, eh?"

"Why, no, sir," replied the guard. "It's been as quiet here since you left as it is now."

"Hum!" said Doctor Kreelmar fiercely. "Well, that's all"—he waved the man away—"go back where you were."

He drew a chair to the bedside, sat down, and for a long while studied Varge's face with troubled intentness.

Varge, who had been watching the doctor from under half-closed lids, was the first to speak.

"What is it, doctor?" he asked, the kindly, habitual smile—that in the months had grown to know a tinge of wistfulness—hovering on his lips, in spite of the pain he was suffering.

The doctor did not answer for a moment, and Varge searched the sober, serious countenance of the other curiously. There had been a fight, an attempted escape—he remembered every detail of it until he had lost consciousness. He had been wounded, seriously wounded—his own medical knowledge had told him that. He had come to himself in this room and the doctor had dressed his wounds. He remembered the strange gentleness of the other's touch; the friendly, sympathetic voice, gruff and blunt with chopped-off words, though it had been. Then he had slept a little and awakened again at Doctor Kreelmar's entry into the