"Who bides here?" he asked, and his voice startled him, for the tone was strange.
"Death, my son," answered the other.
Brendon pushed the old man aside, strode in, and then found that John told the truth.
Hilary Woodrow lay in his bed. The room was lighted by a gas chandelier, but only one jet burnt there. Brendon's mind leapt over the abysses of the last four-and-twenty hours.
"This is not him," he said. "You've dragged that doll back again to deceive me!"
"He died afore noon to-day, and yours was the last name on his lips in this world. Maybe the first in the next."
"Let him scream it in hell—the blasted, faithless villain! Dead—he's not dead—he knows what I'm here for—he's foxing now, as he has foxed me all his life—foul, heartless, godless monster that he was!"
"Daniel—Daniel—for God's sake—a dead man, Daniel!"
"Out on his death and out on you, you go-between! To hold my hand and swear friends, and help them into each other's arms behind my back—God of light and reason! why be such rank poison as you allowed to——?"
He broke off and stared where the colourless clay of his master gazed blankly up—just as the doll had gazed. Insolence seemed to sit on the dust—the insolence of a mean spirit that had narrowly escaped harm and now, in safety, turned to jeer. Brendon roared and cursed the corpse, while Prout implored him to be sane.