The contractor threw himself back on his bed, and lay for some ten minutes perfectly quiet; so much so that the doctor began to think that he was sleeping. So thinking, and wearied by the watching, Dr Thorne was beginning to creep quietly from the room, when his companion again roused himself, almost with vehemence.
"You won't do this thing for me, then?" said he.
"Do it! It is not for you or me to do such things as that. Such things must be left to those concerned themselves."
"You will not even help me?"
"Not in this thing, Sir Roger."
"Then, by ––––, she shall not under any circumstances ever have a shilling of mine. Give me some of that stuff there," and he again pointed to the brandy bottle which stood ever within his sight.
The doctor poured out and handed to him another small modicum of spirit.
"Nonsense, man; fill the glass. I'll stand no nonsense now. I'll be master in my own house to the last. Give it here, I tell you. Ten thousand devils are tearing me within. You—you could have comforted me; but you would not. Fill the glass I tell you."
"I should be killing you were I to do it."
"Killing me! killing me! you are always talking of killing me. Do you suppose that I am afraid to die? Do not I know how soon it is coming? Give me the brandy, I say, or I will be out across the room to fetch it."