Well"--he
turned his wife's face toward him, with a hand against her cheek--"it's
all out now, and I'm eased a bit by the telling. I wish I could get
forty winks, just to make a break between last night and this morning."
"You shall. Lie down and I'll put you to sleep."
He did not think it possible, in spite of his exhaustion, but presently
under her quieting touch he was over the brink, greatly to Ellen's
relief. Her heart contracted with love and sympathy as she watched his
face. It was a weary face, now in its relaxation, and there were heavy
shadows under the closed eyes. Every now and then a frown crossed the
broad brow, as if the sleeper were not wholly at ease, could not forget,
even in his dreams, what he had had to do a few hours ago. She thought
of young Aleck with his manly, smiling face, his pride in keeping Jordan
King's car as fine and efficient beneath its hood--mud-splashed though
it often was without--as he did the shining limousine he drove for Mrs.
Alexander King, Jordan's mother. She thought of what it must be to him
now to know that he was maimed for life. As for King himself, she knew
him well enough to understand how his own injuries would count for
little beside his distress in having had to deal the blow which had
crushed that strong young arm of Aleck's. Her heart ached for them
both--and even for poor Franz, weeping at having been the innocent cause
of all this havoc.
Two hours' sleep did his wife secure for Burns before he woke, stoutly
avowing himself fit for anything again, and setting off, immediately
breakfast was over, for the place to which his thoughts had leaped with
his first return to consciousness.
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