"Get me some morphine, or fetch me a pistol, or light some charcoal."
"Lord, no! You'll be better yet, old man."
"Rot! and you know it; and so does she. But she pretends to care, and yet she won't help me. Damned selfish—damned selfish!" He turned over in bed, and went on cursing under the bedclothes.
Gano wondered how long the idea had been in his head, and how long Driscoll had worn a beard, and whether there was a razor in the dressing-case. He shuddered as he glanced surreptitiously about. Wasn't it a little odd that he should find the notion so ghastly? Ah yes, the ugly violence of it! When the sick man got to sleep his friend rummaged his room from end to end, finding nothing to confiscate; and, after all, Driscoll had a fair night. The morning was gray. A fine drizzle shot spitefully down out of a leaden sky. Mary did not appear at the usual hour. Towards noon Gano went down to his own room, worn out, and flung himself on his bed without undressing. He was waked by the noise of a dull fall overhead. He sprang up in a horror of apprehension, broad awake on the instant. He rushed up-stairs and burst in on Driscoll, to find him angrily pushing books off the table on to the floor, as a summons to his friend below.
"You sleep like the dead," was his greeting. "Where's Mary?"
"Great Cæsar! I don't know."
"My watch has run down," Driscoll went on, querulously.
Gano set it by his. It was five o'clock.
"Don't go to sleep again; let's have some coffee."