Читать книгу The Undying Fire. A contemporary novel онлайн

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Whom could he ask for advice? Who would help him?...

Suppose in the morning he were to take a bathing ticket as if he meant to bathe, and struggle out beyond the mud-flats. He could behave as though cramp had taken him suddenly....

Five minutes of suffocation he would have to force himself through, and then peace—endless peace!

“No,” he said, with a sudden gust of courage. “I will fight it out to the end.”

But his mind was too dull to form plans and physically he was afraid. He would have to find a doctor somehow, and even that little task appalled him.

Then he would have to tell Mrs. Huss....

For a time he lay quite still as if he listened to the alternative swell and diminuendo of his pain.

“Oh! if I had someone to help me!” he whispered, and was overcome by the lonely misery of his position. “If I had someone!”

For years he had never wept, but now tears were wrung from him. He rolled over and buried his face in the pillow and tried to wriggle his body away from that steady gnawing; he fretted as a child might do.