Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/38

 was as if the man had thrown himself down to rest and relaxation, to watch the firelight's play—and had fallen asleep. Poor, pitiful illusion that could last no longer than to enhance the stern awfulness of reality! From the temple upwards across the thick, white hair was a deep open wound, and below it the hair itself was dark and matted; while a little trickling stream of something red, a red deeper even than the glowing coals, still ran down, but very slowly now, behind the ear, and as though to hide itself and its telltale story, disappeared beneath the dead man's collar.

At the Doctor's feet lay the fender bar—a long piece of stout, square, wrought iron, some four feet in length, drawn to rough, ornamental javelin points at the ends. And that it, fashioned once by kindly hands, should be the instrument of death, seemed to Varge, as his eye fell upon it, to lend a curiously mingled touch of pathos and irony to the scene. He remembered the day, a day last summer, the Doctor's birthday, when Joe Malloch, the blacksmith, had brought the gift to the house. The Doctor had been away, and he had helped Joe to set it up before the grate—two small iron pedestals, cleverly forged to represent little mediæval towers, and the bar to rest between them. He remembered the old Doctor's surprise and keen delight when he had seen them. One of the pedestals, knocked over, lay now on its side against the inner edge of the hearth.

A sudden, low, choking sound, like a strong man's stiffledstifled [sic] sob, came from Varge's lips as he stepped across the room, and, on his knees between the fire and Doctor Merton, knelt for a moment over the other's body.

Against the fire, Varge's form loomed up for an