“It will, old boy,” said his friend; “but what do you suppose I care, now that you have given me your promise to come back? By the way, old boy, do you think it would be asking too much, as a special favour, for you to write me a line now and then just to say that you are alive?”
The gaze of William Jordan grew heavy with a darkness that was veiled from his friend.
“You must forgive me, Jimmy, if I don’t,” he said.
“As a special favour,” pleaded his friend. “You know, old boy, I have never had a line of yours. I have always been meaning to ask you for your autograph—that is before the trouble came—and—and now the trouble has come I intend to ask you for it. Send me a line, old boy, to say you are alive.”
“I cannot promise to do that,” said William Jordan, “because the strength has not yet been given to my right hand. But I do promise to return; and when I do return I shall listen for your tap upon the shutters; and then I will let you in as far as the threshold of the little room.”
The friends said their last farewells as the clocks chimed the hour of two.
XLII
When in the middle of the night, William Jordan regained the little room, he found the aged man, his father, seated there. The Book was on the table open. The dagger, the chalice, and the stylus were also displayed. But in the face of the aged man was the mute despair which was ever upon it when these articles came to be brought forth.
The chalice was half-full of the red blood; the quill was dipped therein and held in the hand. But not a stroke had been committed to the virgin page of vellum.
“Will it never be done?” said the old man tremulously, “will it never be accomplished? Answer me, Achilles.”