The dying man looked at him with a strange stare.
“Because it has been the sport of devils, shall we discard its infinite possibilities of good? It is the means—the means, if somewhere we can find the instrument.”
Betty, with her loving woman’s instinct to pity and relieve, had put her arm about the trembling shoulders to support them. Now Luvaine’s head fell back upon that tender pillow, and a rare smile flickered on his tortured mouth.
“To line the cot for the little piping nestling; to nurse it to rich comfort, and train it to be noble and generous and true; to convert this wickedness into a blessing—take it, my child, and with it the last gratitude of this poor foundered wreck.”
The girl looked up, frightened, at the others.
“No, no, no!” she whispered, in a tearful voice, “I cannot.”
“Child—woman, would you deny me this ray of light into the black pit of my doom? The scale is all weighted down on one side. What shall I have to set against the fearful load? They are pinioning me now—my God! I am called to the question!”
Sir David came forward swiftly, took the gem from the nerveless hand, and placed it in Betty’s. A sigh quivered up from the soldier’s lips. He gathered all he could of breath for a last effort.
“I call those present to witness,” he cried, “that I, Edward Luvaine, do here on my death-bed make free gift of the ruby, called the Lake of Wine, to Betty Pollack.”
He sank back and spoke never again. In a few minutes the death-agony was on him. It was brief, but so convulsive while it lasted that, when he was fallen stiffly to rest, they had to fasten his left arm down with a ligature to bring him to some composure of attitude.