His gray hair was matted, and his bloated face smeared with
dust and damp. He was barefooted and bareheaded. But as she gazed down
upon him, and listened to his heavy struggle for breath, she cried in a
tone of terror. "He is dying."
CHAPTER XI.
LOST
An hour later the house was comparatively quiet again. A doctor had
been, and said nothing could be done for Richard Holland, except to let
him die where he was undisturbed. The men who had carried him home had
dispersed, or had adjourned to the Upton Arms, to drink, and to talk
over this close of a drunkard's life. The news had in some way reached
the Rectory; and now only Mr. Chantrey and Ann Holland watched beside
him. They had laid him, as he was, on the little white-covered sofa in
the parlor, never so soiled before. Mr. Chantrey sat gazing at the
degraded, dying man. No deeper debasement could come to any human being;
almost the likeness of a human being had been lost. The mire and slough
of the ditch into which he had fallen still clung to him; for only his
face had been hastily washed clean by his sister's hand; a face that had
forfeited all intelligence and seemliness; a coarse, squalid, disfigured
face.
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