He did not doubt a word she said, and when the letter was
finished he put it passively in Andy's hand, and then, with a bitter
groan, laid his throbbing head upon the cushion of the lounge where he
was sitting. There were no tears in his eyes--nothing but blood-red
circles floating before them; while the aching balls seemed starting
from their sockets with the pressure of pain. He had had his chance with
Ethie and lost it; and though, as yet, he saw but dimly where he had
been to blame, where he had made a mistake, he endured for the time all
he was capable of enduring, and if revenge had been her object, Ethie
had more than her desire.
Andy was stunned for a moment, and sat staring blankly at the motionless
figure of his brother; then, as the terrible calamity began to impress
itself fully upon him, intense pity for Richard became uppermost in his
mind, and stooping over the crushed man, he laid his arm across his
neck, and, tender as a sorrowing, loving mother, kissed and fondled the
damp brown hair, and dropped great tears upon it, and murmured words of
sympathy, incoherent at first, for the anguish choking his own
utterance, but gradually gathering force and sound as his quivering lips
kept trying to articulate: "Dick, poor old Dick, dear old Dick, don't
keep so still and look so white and stony.
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