He shivered a little, breathed heavily
once or twice, then became quite still.
Had he died with a falsehood on his lips?
Gabriel looked round and saw that the cottage door was closed,
and that his father was standing against it. How long he had
occupied that position, how many of the old man's last words he
had heard, it was impossible to conjecture, but there was a
lowering suspicion in his harsh face as he now looked away from
the corpse to his son, which made Gabriel shudder; and the first
question that he asked, on once more approaching the bedside, was
expressed in tones which, quiet as they were, had a fearful
meaning in them.
"What did your grandfather talk about last night?" he asked.
Gabriel did not answer. All that he had heard, all that he had
seen, all the misery and horror that might yet be to come, had
stunned his mind. The unspeakable dangers of his present position
were too tremendous to be realized. He could only feel them
vaguely in the weary torpor that oppressed his heart; while in
every other direction the use of his faculties, physical and
mental, seemed to have suddenly and totally abandoned him.
"Is your tongue wounded, son Gabriel, as well as your arm?" his
father went on, with a bitter laugh. "I come back to you, saved
by a miracle; and you never speak to me. Would you rather I had
died than the old man there? He can't hear you now--why shouldn't
you tell me what nonsense he was talking last night? You won't? I
say you shall!" (He crossed the room and put his back to the
door.
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