His three listeners looked at each other silently.
"It was a grand thing to put an end to the curse," Reginald Carne rambled on. "It was no pain to her; and if she had lived, the trouble would have come upon her children."
"You know that you are hurt beyond chance of recovery, Carne," the magistrate said, gravely. "It is a terrible story that you have told us. I think that you ought to put it down on paper, so that other people may know how it was done; because, you see, at present, an innocent man is suspected."
"What do I care? That is nothing to me one way or the other. I am glad I have succeeded in frightening Ronald Mervyn away, and I hope he will never come back again. You don't suppose I am going to help to bring him home!"
Mr. Volkes saw that he had made a mistake. "Yes, I quite understand you don't want him back," he said, soothingly. "I thought, perhaps, that you would like people to know how you had sacrificed yourself to put an end to the curse, and how cleverly you had managed to deceive every one. People would never believe us if we were to tell them. They would say either that you did not know what you were talking about, or that it was empty boasting on your part."
"They may think what they like," he said, sullenly; "it is nothing to me what they think."
There was a change in the tone of his voice that caused the doctor to put his hand on his wrist again.
"Let me give you a few drops more of brandy, Carne."
"No, I will not," the dying man said. "I suppose you want to keep me alive to get some more out of me, but you won't. I won't speak again."
The others held a whispered conversation in the corner.