At this, the crouching figure in the doorway shivers, and shakes his wretched old head, as though all things for him are at an end. The storm seems to burst with redoubled fury, and flings itself against the panes, as though calling upon him to come out and be their pastime and their sport.
"My dear Sir Christopher," says Fabian, very quietly, yet with an air of decision that can be heard above the fury of the storm, "it is impossible you can turn the old man out now, at his age, to again solicit Fortune's favor. It would be terrible."
At this calm, but powerful intervention of Fabian's, the old head in the doorway (bowed with fear and anxiety) raises itself abruptly, as though unable to believe the words that have just fallen upon his ears. He has crept here to listen with a morbid longing to contemptuous words uttered of him by the lips that have just spoken; and lo! these very lips have been opened in his behalf, and naught but kindly words have issued from them.
As the truth breaks in upon his dulled brain that Fabian has actually been defending his—his case, a ghastly pallor overspreads his face, and it is with difficulty he suppresses a groan. He controls himself, however, and listens eagerly for what may follow.
"Do you mean to tell me I am bound to keep a depraved drunkard beneath my roof?" demands Sir Christopher, vehemently. "A fellow who insults my guests, who—"
"The fact that he has contracted this miserable habit of which you speak is only another reason why you should think well before you discard him now, in his old age," says Fabian, with increasing earnestness. "He will starve—die in a garret or by the wayside, if you fling him off. He is not in a fit state to seek another livelihood. Who would employ him? And you he has served faithfully for years—twenty years, I think; and of all the twenty only three or four have been untrustworthy. You should think of that, Christopher. He was your right hand fur a long time, and—and he has done neither you nor yours a real injury."
Here the unhappy figure in the doorway raises his hand and beats his clenched fist in a half-frantic, though silent, manner against his forehead.
"You are bound, I think," says Fabian, in the same calm way, "to look after him, to bear with him a little."
"You defend him!" exclaims Sir Christopher, irritably, "yet I believe that in his soul he hates you—would do you a harm if he could. It is his treatment of you at times," says Sir Christopher, coming at last to the real germ of the danger he is cherishing against Slyme, "that—that— Remember what he said only last week about you."
"Tut!" says Fabian, "I remember nothing. He was drunk, no doubt, and said what he did not mean."