"I can see no good in wealth," said he, "when you're dead."
"That is true," said Crouch. "No one would dispute it--except yourself."
"But I admit it!" said de Costa.
"You admit it in words," said the other, "but you deny it in your life."
"I am too ill to understand. Please explain."
Crouch leaned forward and tapped the palm of his left hand with the forefinger of his right.
"You say," said he, "that you know that you'll die if you remain here. Yet you remain here in order to pile up a great fortune to take back with you to Jamaica or Portugal, wherever you intend to go. But you will take nothing back, because you will die. You are therefore courting death. I repeat your own words: what will be the use of all this wealth to you after you are dead?"
De Costa sat up in his bed.
"It's true!" he cried in a kind of groan.
"H'sh!" said Crouch. "Be quiet! Don't raise your voice."