The dawn came at last. Its faint streak of light crept lazily in
at the curtainless window.
Then Garth raised himself in his bed.
"Give me paper--paper and a pen--quick, quick!" he cried.
"What would you write, Joe?" said Rotha.
"I want to write to him--to Ralph--Ralph Ray," he said, in a voice
quite unlike his own.
Rotha ran to the chest in the kitchen and opened it. In a side shelf
pens were there and paper too. She came back, and put them before the
sick man.
But he was unconscious of what she had done.
She looked into his face. His eyes seemed not to see.
"The paper and pen!" he cried again, yet more eagerly.
She put the quill into his hand and spread the paper before him.
"What writing is this," he cried, pointing to the white sheet; "this
writing in red?"
"Where?"
"Here--everywhere."
The pen dropped from his nerveless fingers.
"To think they will take a dying man!" he said. "You would scarce
think they would have the heart, these people. You would scarce think
it, would you?" he said, lifting his poor glassy eyes to Rotha's face.
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