"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!"

a.s.shlin 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 h.e.l.l."

"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 G.o.d, you were right!"

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

"Don't bother yourself! 'Tisn't of my d.a.m.ned 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 a.s.shlin.

"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?" a.s.shlin 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 a.s.shlin 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."

a.s.shlin 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 n.o.bility, 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.

CHAPTER III

a.s.shlin scarcely spoke again during the early portion of that day. The immense effort of his explanation to Milbanke left him correspondingly weak; though through all his exhaustion, a look of peace and satisfaction was visible in his eyes.

During the whole morning Milbanke remained at his bedside, only leaving the room to partake--at Clodagh's urgent request--of a hurried meal in the deserted dining-room. At twelve o'clock the nurse resumed her duties, and soon afterwards the dispensary doctor from Carrigmore drove over to see his patient. Before he came into the sick-room Milbanke left it; but when--his examination over--he departed with a whispered injunction to the nurse, he found the stranger waiting for him in the corridor.

Milbanke stepped forward as he appeared, and silently motioned him down the pa.s.sage to his own room, inviting him to enter with a punctilious gesture.