"You don't suffer, I hope?"
Nathan nodded.
"I can tell you, but I trust you not to let it out to any soul. We must have the wedding off cheerful and bright. I shall keep going till then, if I'm careful. Only a month now."
"You ought to be lying up close, and never put your nose out this coarse weather."
"Time enough. Leave it now. I'm all right. I've had a good life—better than you might think for. I wish for my sake, and knowing that I've got my end in sight, you'd do the last thing you can for me and countenance this wedding. Perhaps I've no right to ask; but if you knew—if you knew how hard life can be when the flesh gives way and there's such a lot left to do and think about. If you only knew——"
"You say 'the last thing I can do for you.' Are you sure of that?"
A strange and yearning expression crossed the face of the younger man. He stroked his beard nervously and Humphrey, now awake to physical accidents, marked that his hands were grown very thin and his skin had taken on it a yellowish tinge of colour.
There was silence between them for some moments. Then Nathan shook his head and forced a smile upon his face.
"Nothing else—nothing at all. But it's no small thing that I ask. I know that. You've a right to feel little affection for either of them—Ned or Cora. But my case is different. Cora's mother——"
Again he stopped, but Humphrey did not speak.