We see him writhing on the straw.
He throws up both his hands and gasps hysterically for breath. His eyes
open suddenly. For a moment they look at nothing, with a vacant glitter in
them--then they close again in deeper sleep. Is he dreaming still? Yes;
but the dream seems to have taken a new course. When he speaks next, the
tone is altered; the words are few--sadly and imploringly repeated over
and over again. "Say you love me! I am so fond of _you_. Say you love me!
say you love me!" He sinks into deeper and deeper sleep, faintly repeating
those words. They die away on his lips. He speaks no more.
By this time Mrs. Fairbank has got over her terror; she is devoured by
curiosity now. The miserable creature on the straw has appealed to the
imaginative side of her character. Her illimitable appetite for romance
hungers and thirsts for more. She shakes me impatiently by the arm.
"Do you hear? There is a woman at the bottom of it, Percy! There is love
and murder in it, Percy! Where are the people of the inn? Go into the
yard, and call to them again."
My wife belongs, on her mother's side, to the South of France. The South
of France breeds fine women with hot tempers. I say no more. Married men
will understand my position. Single men may need to be told that there are
occasions when we must not only love and honor--we must also obey--our
wives.
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