“If you are at liberty for a few minutes, I wish to talk to you,” he said savagely.
“I, too,” she answered, “have something to say, but I am too weary and upset to say it now. I will see you to-morrow.”
He turned and went without answering, and Pigott noticed that no kiss or word of endearment passed between them, and that the tone of their words was cold.
Soon after Philip got downstairs the doctor came. Philip met him in the hall and accompanied him into the study, where the body was. He made a rapid examination, more as a matter of form than anything else, for his first glance had told him that life was extinct.
“Quite dead,” he said sorrowfully; “my old friend gone at last. One of a fine sort too; a just man for all his temper. They called him ‘devil,’ and he was fierce when he was younger, but if I never meet a worse devil than he was I shall do well. He was very kind to me once— very. How did he go?—in pain, I fear.”
“We were talking together, when suddenly he was seized with the attack. I got the medicine as quick as I could and tried to get it down his throat, but he could not swallow, and in the hurry the glass was knocked by a jerk of his head right out of my hands. Next second he was dead.”
“Very quick—quicker than I should have expected. Did he say anything?”
“No.”
Now, just as Philip delivered himself of this last lie, a curious incident happened, or rather an incident that is apt to seem curious to a person who has just told a lie. The corpse distinctly moved its right hand—the same that had been clasped over the old man’s head as he denounced his son.
“Good God!” said Philip, turning pale as death, “what’s that?” and even the doctor started a little, and cast a keen look at the dead face.