Chapter II

With a strange blending of curiosity and shrinking, Milbanke obeyed the pressure of Clodagh's hand, and moved forward into the room. The cold March daylight was partly excluded by drawn blinds, but a glow from the fire played upon the walls and the high four-post bedstead.

With the same mingling of curiosity and dread, his eyes fell at once upon this prominent article of furniture and remained fixed there in doubt and incredulity. For the moment his senses refused to acknowledge that the feverish, haggard face that stared at him from the pillows was the face of Asshlin--Asshlin, tyrannical, passionate, greedy of life.

In the hours of agony that he had passed through, the sick man's features had become shrunken, causing his eyes to stare forth preternaturally large and restless; his hair had been cropped close, to allow of the dressing of a wound over the temple, and the tight white bandages lent a strange and unfamiliar appearance to his finely shaped head. With a sick sensation, Milbanke went slowly forward.

The patient made no attempt to move as he drew near the bed, but his feverishly bright glance seemed to devour his face.

"Here he is, father!" Clodagh exclaimed softly and eagerly. "Here's Mr. Milbanke! Now, aren't you happy? He's not able to move," she explained, turning to the guest. "It gives him terrible agony to stir."

Milbanke had reached the bed; and with a sensation of awkwardness and impotence impossible to describe, he stood looking down upon Asshlin.

"My poor Denis!" he said. "My poor, poor friend! This is a bad business; I had no idea----"

Then he paused confusedly, remembering Clodagh's warning.

"But we'll see you laughing at it all before we're much older," he added, in awkward haste to make amends.

A gleam of something like irony crossed Asshlin's watchful eyes.

"I'm done for this time, James!" he said feebly. "I suppose I've had my day, and, like every other dog, must answer to the whistle. I don't complain! I'm getting more than my deserts in seeing you again. You're as welcome as the flowers in----"

His voice failed.

"I know--I know! Don't trouble! Don't try to speak!" Milbanke bent over him anxiously.

But Asshlin glanced back.

"Ah, but that's what I must do, James!" he said sharply. "That's what I want you for. I have something that must be said."

Milbanke turned to Clodagh.

"Is it right of him to excite himself?" he asked in distress. "If it's anything that you reproach yourself with, Denis----"

But Asshlin interrupted with a weak echo of his old intolerance.

"Send Clo away!" he said. "There's something I want to say."

Again Milbanke looked helplessly at Clodagh, but her eyes were fixed passionately on her father's face.

"He'll excite himself more if we cross him," she said hesitatingly. "I think I'd better go."

Still Milbanke hesitated.

"But the doctor?" he hazarded. "If the doctor insists on quiet----"

She glanced at him quickly, her clear eyes brimming.

"Oh, I don't know!" she exclaimed; "I can't cross him--I can't cross him! He's wanted you so badly."

She turned quickly towards the bed.

"Father," she said tenderly, "won't you promise not to talk much? Won't you promise to take care?"

For answer, Asshlin looked up, meeting her glance.

"I'll promise, child--I'll promise. Run away now--and God bless you!" He added the expressive native phrase in a suddenly lowered voice.

Clodagh bent quickly and kissed his hot, drawn face with passionate affection; then, as if fearing to trust herself, she turned hastily and passed out of the room.

Instantly the two men were alone, Asshlin turned to his guest.

"James," he said agitatedly, "I haven't thought much about the Almighty in these last years; but I give you my word, I have prayed that I might see you before I die."

"My dear Denis, don't! I beg you not to excite yourself. I implore you----"

Asshlin made a harsh sound of impatience.

"Don't waste breath over a dying man," he said roughly. Then, seeing the distress in the other's face, he altered his tone. "Don't take it to heart, James! It's the road we must all travel. They think there's life in me yet, but I know better. You may blindfold a sheep as much as you like, but 'twill know that you're dragging it to the slaughter. I tell you I'm done for--as done for as if the undertaker had measured me for the coffin."

He moved his head slightly and painfully, his feverish glance brightening.

"James," he exclaimed suddenly, "I'm in a terrible position! But 'tisn't death that's troubling me."

"Denis!"

"'Tis true! I'm not frightened of death--I hope I'm man enough to face a natural law. 'Twould have been better if I'd had to face it thirty years ago."

"Denis, don't! I beg you to keep quiet----"

"Quiet? I tell you there's not much quiet for a man like me. 'Tisn't what I'm going to that's troubling me, but what I'm leaving behind. I'll be paying me own score on the other side; but here 'tis others will be paying it for me."

His burning eyes fixed themselves on Milbanke's.

"But, my dear old friend----"

"Don't talk to me, James! Don't waste words on me. I'm broke inside and out. I'm smashed. I'm done for." A spasm of pain, mental and physical, twisted his features. "The weak, worthless egotist has come to the end of his rope!" He tried to laugh.

Milbanke, in deep apprehension, laid his hand lightly on his shoulder.

"Denis," he pleaded, "don't talk like this! Don't torture yourself like this!"

Asshlin groaned.

"'Tis involuntary!" he cried. "'Tis wrung from me. Every time they come into the room--every time I see the tears in their eyes--every time they kiss me, I tell you I taste hell."

"Who?"

"The children. My children." Another spasm crossed his face. "You once told me I was not fit to have children, James--and you were right. By God, you were right!"

"Denis, I refuse to listen. I insist--I----"

"Don't bother yourself! 'Tisn't of my damned health I'm thinking."

"Then what is it? What is troubling you?"

"The children--the children. I've been a blackguard, James--a blackguard." He moved his head sharply, regardless of the agony the movement caused. "I tell you I don't care what's before myself. I've always been a reckless fool. But 'tis the children--the children."

"What of the children?"

A sound of mockery and despair escaped Asshlin.

"Ah, you may well ask!" he said--"you may well ask! 'Tis the question I've been putting to myself every hour since they laid me here. You know the world, James. You know what the world will be to two pretty, penniless girls. And they're so unconscious of it all! That's the sting of it. They're so unconscious of it all! They care for me; they cling to me as if I were a good man, and in five years' time they may be cursing the hour they were born." A fresh groan was wrung from him.

A look of apprehension crossed Milbanke's face.

"Oh no, Denis!" he exclaimed quickly. "No. Things can't be as bad as that. Your suffering has told upon your nerves. Things can't be as bad as that."

"They are worse. I tell you these two children will face life without a penny."

"No, no! You exaggerate. Why, even if you were to die they would still have the place. The place must be worth something."

"Ah, if I could only drug my conscience with that thought! But I can't--I can't! Before I'm cold in my grave my creditors will be down on the property like a swarm of rats."

"No, no!"

"Yes! I tell you yes! The children will be homeless as well as penniless."

Milbanke glanced about him in deep perplexity.

"There's your sister-in-law," he hazarded at length.

"Fan?" Asshlin made a contemptuous grimace. "Fan is as poor as a church mouse already. Laurence had nothing to leave her: the Navy beggared him. No, Fan could do nothing for them. And, anyway, she and Clodagh couldn't stand each other for a twelvemonth. You might as well try to blend fire and water. No, there's no way out of it. I'm reaping the whirlwind, James. I'm reaping it with a vengeance."

The fever of his suffering and the excitement of his remorse were burning in his eyes. In the three days of his illness his natural exuberance of mind had been directed towards one point--the tardily aroused knowledge of the future that awaited his children. And the consequence had been a piteous intermingling of realisation and partial delirium. His agony and helplessness were pitiable as he turned to his friend.

"What am I to do, James?" he asked--"what am I to do?"

Milbanke bent over him.

"Denis! Denis!" he pleaded.

"But what am I to do? Advise me while there's time. 'Tis for that I've wanted you. You've always been a good man. What must I do?"

Milbanke tightened his lips.

"You have friends," he said.

"Ah! but how many? And where?"

There was no response for a moment, as Milbanke slowly straightened himself and glanced across the room towards the fire. Then very quietly he turned towards the bed.

"You have one--here," he said in a low voice.

For an instant Asshlin answered nothing; then an odd sound--something between a laugh and a sob--shook him.

"James!" he cried. "James!"

But Milbanke leant forward hastily.

"Not a word!" he said. "Not one word! If thanks are due, it is from me to you. It is not every day that human responsibilities fall to an old bachelor of my age."

Asshlin remained silent. Dissipated, blunted, degenerate though he might be, his native intuition was unimpaired; and in a flash of illumination he saw the grade of nobility, the high point of honour to which this prosaic, unimaginative man had attained in that moment of need. With a pang of acute pain, he freed his uninjured arm and shakingly held out his hand.

"There are no friends like the old friends, James!" he said in a broken voice.