"No, no," said Langholm, hoarsely; "no, I believe you! Yes—it was my first idea!"
"I hardly knew what I was doing," Severino whispered. "I was delirious then, if you like! Yet I remember it better than anything else in all my life. I have never forgotten it for an hour—since it first came back!"
"You really were unconscious for days afterwards?"
"I believe it was weeks. Otherwise, you must know—she will be the first to believe—I never could have let her—"
"My poor, dear fellow—of course—of course."
Langholm felt for the emaciated hand, and stroked it as though it had been a child's. Yet that was the hand that had slain Alexander Minchin! And Langholm thought of it; and still his own was almost womanly in the tender pity of its touch.
"I want to tell you," the sick lad murmured. "I wanted to tell her—God knows it—and that alone was why I came to her the moment I could find out where she was. No—no—not that alone! I am too ill to pretend any more. It was not all pretence when I let you think it was only passion that drove me down here. I believe I should have come, even if I had had nothing at all to tell her—only to be near her—as I was this afternoon! But the other made it a duty. Yet, when she came this afternoon, I could not do my duty. I had not the courage. It was too big a thing just to be with her again! And then the other lady—I thanked God for her too—for she made it impossible for me to speak. But to you I must ... especially after what you say."
The man came out in Langholm's ministrations. "One minute," he said; and returned in two or three with a pint of tolerable champagne. "I keep a few for angel's visits," he explained; "but I am afraid I must light the candle. I will put it at the other side of the room. Do you mind the tumbler? Now drink, and tell me only what you feel inclined, neither more nor less."
"It is all written down," began Severino, in better voice for the first few drams: "how I first heard her singing through the open windows in the summer—only last summer!—how she heard me playing, and how afterwards we came to meet. She was unhappy; he was a bad husband; but I only saw it for myself. He was nice enough to me in his way—liked to send round for me to play when they had anybody there—but there was only one reason why I went. Oh, yes ... the ground she trod on ... the air she breathed! I make no secret of it now; if I made any then, it was because I knew her too well, and feared to lose what I had got. And yet—that brute, that bully, that coarse—"
He checked himself by an effort that stained his face a sickly brown in the light of the distant candle. Langholm handed him the tumbler, and a few more drams went down to do the only good—the temporary good—that human aid could do for Severino now. His eyes brightened. He lay still and silent, collecting strength and self-control.