"Nay—it is nothing to be afraid of. You see I am not afraid. I have guessed it for many years. I have known it for a certainty ever since I was in Paris."
"Were you ill in Paris?—You never said so."
"No—because—Phineas, do you think you could bear the truth? You know it makes no real difference. I shall not die an hour sooner for being aware of it."
"Aware of—what? Say quickly."
"Dr. K—— told me—I was determined to be told—that I had the disease I suspected; beyond medical power to cure. It is not immediately fatal; he said I might live many years, even to old age; and I might die, suddenly, at any moment, just as your father died."
He said this gently and quietly—more quietly than I am writing the words down now; and I listened—I listened.
"Phineas!"
I felt the pressure of his warm hand on my shoulder—the hand which had led me like a brother's all my life.
"Phineas, we have known one another these forty years. Is our love, our faith, so small, that either of us, for himself or his brother, need be afraid of death?—"
"Phineas!"—and the second time he spoke there was some faint reproach in the tone; "no one knows this but you. I see I was right to hesitate; I almost wish I had not told you at all."