"You need not condole with me," he said. "Don't ask me to make a deathbed confession, for that kind of thing is sheer waste of time. I know that I'm dying. I know that I may fall back at any moment, and then there will be the end. I'm full of blood inside. I might have told that fool of a doctor what he had come to find out—that a broken rib has pierced the lung, and I'm bleeding away quietly. Feel my hands."
Berrington touched the cold, clammy fingers. They were icy with the touch of death.
"Rigor mortis," Sartoris said. "Only a few minutes now. It's a good thing for you, and it's a good thing for Mary, who has been cursed with a brother like me. It's, it's——"
Sartoris said no more. There was a bubbling kind of sigh, blood welled from his mouth and ran down his coat, his head dropped on one side, and he was gone. There was nothing to be said, nothing to be done. On the whole it was just as well.
"It's a ghastly business altogether," Berrington said to Field. "Old soldier as I am, I have had quite enough of horrors for one night. I understand that
Miss Grey returned to the Royal Palace with Mrs. Richford. I had better go and tell them both what has happened."
Field agreed, and Berrington departed on his errand. It was not much past eleven yet, so there was plenty of time. Mary and Beatrice had gone back to the hotel in care of Mark Ventmore. They were seated in the drawing-room when Berrington arrived.
Beatrice crossed the room quickly. She wanted to have a few words with Berrington before the others joined in the discussion; she wanted to know if anything had been discovered.
"About my father?" she asked. "This suspense is horrible. Have they not got on the track yet? Why did they want to do that disgraceful thing at all?"
Berrington explained as far as possible. Beatrice was quick to see the meaning of it all. The recital of the story made her a little easier in her mind.