Notwithstanding | Page 8

do you a good turn to make up for the bad one. He said he'd never known it fail, and I haven't either. I've tried it scores of times. When you're angry, Annette, look at a cloud." Dick's blue eyes were fixed with a great earnestness on hers. "Not just for a minute. Choose a good big one, like a lot of cotton wool, and go on looking at it while it moves. And the anger goes away. Sounds rot, doesn't it? But you simply can't stay angry. Seems as if everything were too small and footling to matter. Try it, Annette. Don't look at water any more. That's no use. But a cloud--the bigger the better.... You won't drown yourself now, will you?"
"No."
"Annette rolling down to the sea over and over, knocking against the bridges. I can't bear to think of it. Promise me."
"I promise."
He sighed, and his hand fell out of hers. She laid it down. The great wind of which he spoke had taken him once more, whither he knew not. She leaned her face against the pillow and longed that she too might be swept away whither she knew not.
The doctor came in and looked at them.
"Are his family coming soon?" he asked Mrs. Stoddart afterwards. "And Madame Le Geyt! Can Madame's mother be summoned? There has been some great shock. Her eyes show it. It is not only Monsieur who is on the verge of the precipice."

Chapter 5
"And he the wind-whipped, any whither wave Crazily tumbled on a shingle-grave To waste in foam." -- Gerorge Meredith
Towards evening Dick regained consciousness.
"Annette." That was always the first word.
"Here." That was always the second.
"I lost the way back," he said breathlessly. "I thought I should never find it, but I had to come."
He made a little motion with his hand, and she took it.
"You must help me. I have no one but you." His eyes dwelt on her. His helpless soul clung to hers, as hers did to his. They were like two shipwrecked people--were they not indeed shipwrecked?--cowering on a raft together, alone, in the great ring of the sea.
"What can I do?" she said. "Tell me and I will do it."
"I have made no provision for Mary or--the little one. I promised her I would when it was born. But I haven't done it. I thought of it when I fell on my head. But when I was better next day I put it off. I always put things off... And it's not only Mary. There's Hulver, and the Scotch property, and all the rest. If I die without making a will it will all go to poor Harry." He was speaking rapidly, more to himself than to her. "And when father was dying he said, 'Roger ought to have it.' Father was a just man. And I like Roger, and he's done his duty by the place, which I haven't. He ought to have it. Annette, help me to make my will. I was on my way to the lawyer's to make it when I met you on the bridge."
Half an hour later, in the waning day, the notary arrived, and Dick made his will in the doctor's presence. His mind was amazingly clear.
"Is he better?" asked Mrs. Stoddart of the doctor, as she and the nurse left the room.
"Better! It is the last flare up of the lamp," said the doctor. "He is right when he says he shan't get back here again. He is riding his last race, but he is riding to win."
Dick rode for all he was worth, and urged the doctor to help him, to keep his mind from drifting away into the unknown.
The old doctor thrust out his under lip and did what he could.
By Dick's wish, Annette remained in the room, but he did not need her. His French was good enough. He knew exactly what he wanted. The notary was intelligent, and brought with him a draft for Dick's signature. Dick dictated and whispered earnestly to him.
"Oui, oui," said the notary at intervals. "Parfaitement. Monsieur peut se fier ? moi."
At last it was done, and Dick, panting, had made a kind of signature, his writing dwindling down to a faint scrawl after the words "Richard Le Geyt," which were fairly legible.
The doctor attested it.
"She must witness it too," said Dick insistently, pointing to Annette.
The notary glanced at the will, realized that she was not a legatee, and put the pen in her hand, showing her where to sign.
"Madame will write here."
He indicated the place under his own crabbed signature.
She wrote mechanically her full name: Annette Georges.
"But, madame," said the notary, bewildered, "is not then Madame's name the same as Monsieur's?"
"Madame is so lately married that she sometimes signs her old name by mistake," said the doctor, smiling