United States or Netherlands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Just arrived," he murmured back, and turned again to look at Stella who lay motionless with closed eyes, scarcely seeming to breathe. Mrs. Ralston's whisper smote the silence, and it was the doctor's turn to start. "Send him in at once!" she said. So insistent was her command that he stood up as if he had been prodded into action. Mrs. Ralston was on her feet. She waved an urgent hand.
And it will give me so much pleasure to take care of you." Stella relinquished the discussion with a short sigh. "It doesn't seem to matter much what I do," she said. "Tommy certainly doesn't need me. No one does. And I expect you will soon get very tired of me." "Never, dear, never." Mrs. Ralston's hand clasped hers reassuringly. "Never think that for a moment!
"I'll go and find him," said Tommy. "But look here, dear! Have that draught of Ralston's and lie down! Just to please me!" She began to refuse, but Tommy could be very persuasive when he chose, and he chose on this occasion. Finally, with reluctance she yielded, since, as he pointed out, she needed all the strength she could muster.
It quite surprised me when I found from the directory that Vanderdyke's office was on the floor below in the same building. Like Mrs. Ralston's, it was open, but not doing business, pending the investigation by the Post-Office Department. Vanderdyke was a type of which I had seen many before.
They chatted for a time on current matters. There was to be a Merchants' Exchange. Already ground was broken for the building. The Bank of California, one of Ralston's enterprises, would soon open its doors. Ralston was in a dozen ventures, all of them constructive, public spirited. He counted his friends by the hundreds. Suddenly he turned from contemplation of the blackboard to Benito.
But he had not yet done with Futteh Ali Shah. "I am going out," he said suavely. "Shall we walk a little way together?" Futteh Ali Shah smiled. Landowner of importance that he was, the opportunity to ride side by side through Peshawur with the Chief Commissioner did not come every day. The two men went out into the porch. Ralston's horse was waiting, with a scarlet-clad syce at its head.
And British eyes, keen and grey and stern, looked on from afar, watching silently, as the Indian bore his senseless mem-sahib away. "And what am I going to do?" demanded Mrs. Ermsted fretfully. She was lounging in the easiest chair in Mrs. Ralston's drawing-room with a cigarette between her fingers. A very decided frown was drawing her delicate brows.
The lights recalled to Ralston's mind a fact which he had forgotten to mention. "By the way," he said, turning towards Linforth, "we have a lady staying with us who knows you." Linforth leaned forward in his saddle and stooped as if to adjust a stirrup, and it was thus a second or two before he answered. "Indeed!" he said. "Who is she?" "A Mrs.
The idea that any ill-feeling could remain after so good a fight was one quite beyond the shikari's conception. "Besides," he said, "it was I who threw the gravel at your Excellency's windows." "Why, that's true," said Poulteney, and a window was thrown up behind him. Ralston's head appeared at the window. "You had better take him," the Chief Commissioner said.
When that memory came to her, her brain seemed to stand still. There was no passing on from that. Everard had been shot in the jungle just as she had always known he would be. He had ridden on in spite of it. She pictured his grim endurance with shrinking vividness. He had ridden on to Major Ralston's bungalow and had collapsed there, collapsed and died before they could help him.
Word Of The Day