He put out a narrow, claw-like hand and laid it upon her arm. His eyes were like onyxes, Oriental, quite emotionless.
"Do not agitate yourself, madam!" he said. "My patient is better. I think, that with care—he may live. That is, if he finds it worth while."
"What do you mean?" she said in a whisper.
That there was a veiled meaning to his words she was assured at the outset. His whole bearing conveyed something mysterious, something sinister, to her startled imagination. She wanted to shake off the hand upon her arm, but she had to suffer it though the man's bare touch revolted her.
He was leaning slightly towards her, but yet his face was utterly inanimate. It was obvious that though he had imposed his personality upon her with a definite end in view, he was personally totally indifferent as to whether he achieved that end or not.
"I mean," he said, after a quiet pause, "that the desire to live is sometimes the only medicine that is of any avail. I know Guy Ranger. He is a fool in many ways, but not in all. He is not for instance fool enough to hang on to life if it holds nothing worth having. He was born with an immense love of life. He would not have done this thing if he had not somehow lost this gift—for it is a gift. If he does not get it back—somehow—then," the black, stony eyes looked into hers without emotion—"he will die."
She shrank at the cold deliberation of his words. "Oh no—no! Not like this! Not—by his own hand!"
"Ah!" He leaned towards her, bringing his sallow, impassive countenance close to hers, repulsively close, to her over-acute sensibilities. "And how is that to be prevented? Who is to give him that priceless remedy—the only medicine that can save him? Can I?" He lifted his shoulders expressively, indicating his own helplessness. And then in a voice dropped to a whisper, "Can you?"
She did not answer him. There was something horrible to her in that low-spoken question, something that yet possessed for her a species of evil fascination that restrained her from open revolt.
He waited for a while, his eyes so immovably fixed upon hers that she had a mild wonder if they were lidless—as the eyes of a serpent.