The next night he was there again. Death had come to the huddled form on
the bed, but there had been no relaxing. With the head thrown rigidly far
back and all the features tense and hard, it was a fighting figure still,
a figure of stern protest against the world's injustice. But Roger was not
thinking of this, but of the discovery he had made, that in their talk of
the night before John had understood him--completely. For upon a piece of
paper which Allan had given the lad that day, these words had been
painfully inscribed:
"This is my last will and testament. I am in my right mind--I know what I
am doing--though nobody else does--nobody is here. To my partner Roger Gale
I leave my share in our business. And to my teacher Deborah Baird I leave
my crutches for her school."
CHAPTER XLIII
After John had gone away the house was very quiet. Only from the room
upstairs there could be heard occasionally the faint clear cry of Deborah's
child. And once again to Roger came a season of repose. He was far from
unhappy. His disease, although progressing fast, gave him barely any pain;
it rather made its presence felt by the manner in which it affected his
mind. His inner life grew uneven. At times his thoughts were as in a fog,
again they were amazingly clear and vistas opened far ahead. He could not
control his thinking.
This bothered him at the office, in the work he still had to do.
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