She looked at Burke with questioning, uncertain eyes as he entered.
In the dim light he seemed to her bigger, more imposing, more
dominant, than he had ever seemed before. He rolled a little as he
walked as if stiff from long hours in the saddle.
Behind him came another man--a small thin man with sleek black hair
and a swarthy Jewish face, who moved with a catlike deftness,
making no sound at all.
"Well, Sylvia?" Burke said. "Is he alive?"
He took the lamp from the table, and cast its waning light full
upon her. She shrank a little involuntarily from the sudden glare.
Almost without knowing it, she pressed Guy's inert hand to her
breast. The dream was still upon her. It was hardly of her own
volition that she answered him.
"Yes, he is alive. He has been speaking. I think he is asleep."
"Permit me!" the stranger said.
He knelt beside the still form while Burke held the lamp. He
opened the shirt and exposed the blood-soaked bandage.
Then suddenly he looked at Sylvia with black eyes of a most amazing
brightness. "Madam, you cannot help here. You had better go."
Somehow he made her think of a raven, unscrupulous, probably wholly
without pity, possibly wicked, and overwhelmingly intelligent. She
avoided his eyes instinctively. They seemed to know too much.
"Will he--do you think he win--live?" she whispered.
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