"Nay," she said, "Loup...is an ingrate. He has ceased to care."
And always after she avoided aught that could excite mention of the
dog.
But, in spite of all her effort, McElroy lay week after week in the
back room, looking for hours together into the red heart of the fire,
silent, uncomplaining, in no apparent pain, but shiftless as an Indian
in the matter of life.
The business of the factory was brought to him nightly by Ridgar and
the young clerk Gifford, and he would look over things and make a few
suggestions, dispose of this and that as a matter of course and fall
back into his lethargy.
"What think you, M'sieu?" asked Rette anxiously, of Ridgar. "Is there
naught to stir him from these hours of dulness?"
"I know not, Rette. Would I did! The surgeon says there is nothing
wrong with the man, save lack of desire to live. He has lost the love
of life."
And so it seemed. Weeks dragged themselves by and months rolled after
them, and still he lay in a great weakness that held his strong limbs
as in a vice.
Winter was roaring itself away with tearing winds, with snow that fell
and drifted against the stockade wall, and fell again, with vast
silences and cold that glazed the surface of the world with ice.
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