As
he sat in a chair in front of the fire, or walked up and down the room picking
a handkerchief to pieces, you heard what poor Moriarty really thought of Mrs.
Reiver, for he raved about her and his own fall for the most part; though he
ravelled some P. W. D. accounts into the same skein of thought. He talked, and
talked, and talked in a low dry whisper to himself, and there was no stopping
him. He seemed to know that there was something wrong, and twice tried to pull
himself together and confer rationally with the Doctor; but his mind ran out
of control at once, and he fell back to a whisper and the story of his
troubles. It is terrible to hear a big man babbling like a child of all that a
man usually locks up, and puts away in the deep of his heart. Moriarty read
out his very soul for the benefit of any one who was in the room between ten-
thirty that night and two-forty-five next morning.
From what he said, one gathered how immense an influence Mrs. Reiver held over
him, and how thoroughly he felt for his own lapse. His whisperings cannot, of
course, be put down here; but they were very instructive as showing the errors
of his estimates.
. . . . . . . . .
When the trouble was over, and his few acquaintances were pitying him for the
bad attack of jungle-fever that had so pulled him down, Moriarty swore a big
oath to himself and went abroad again with Mrs.
Pages:
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719