An Old Flame
it proved to be a hearse; and all at once the white breath ceased upon my lips.
I had looked up at our windows and the blinds were down!
I rushed within. The doctor's door stood open. I neither knocked nor rang, but found him in his consulting-room with red eyes and a blotchy face. Otherwise he was in solemn black from head to heel.
"Who is dead?" I burst out. "Who is dead?"
The red eyes looked redder than ever as Dr. Theobald opened them at the unwarrantable sight of me; and he was terribly slow in answering. But in the end he did answer, and did not kick me out as he evidently had a mind.
"Mr. Maturin," he said, and sighed like a beaten man.
I said nothing. It was no surprise to me. I had known it all these minutes. Nay, I had dreaded this from the first, had divined it at the last, though to the last also I had refused to entertain my own conviction. Raffles dead! A real invalid after all! Raffles dead, and on the point of burial!
"What did he die of?" I asked, unconsciously drawing on that fund of grim self-control which
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