The knocking below did not
rouse him from this posture, nor the creaking of feet on the stairs.
Doctor Beckerleg stood in the doorway and for a moment contemplated
the scene--the empty bottles, the unsnuffed candles guttering down
upon the table, and the grey faces of both drunken men. Then he
turned and whispered a word to the drawer, who had hurried out of bed
to admit him and now stood behind his shoulder. The fellow shuffled
downstairs.
Captain Barker struggled with a question that was dried up in his
throat. Before he could get it out the Doctor shook his head.
"She is dead," he announced, very gravely and simply.
The hunchback shivered. Captain Runacles neither spoke nor stirred
in his chair.
"A man-child was born at two o'clock. He is alive: his mother died
two hours later."
Captain Barker shivered again, plucked aimlessly at a rosette in the
window-cushion, and stole a quick glance at his comrade's back.
Then, putting a finger to his lip, he slid down to the floor and
lurched across to the Doctor.
"She was left penniless?" he whispered.
"That, or almost that, 'tis said," replied Dr. Beckerleg in the same
key, though the question obviously surprised him. "Her father left
his money to the town, as all know--"
"Yes, yes; I knew that.
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