"I mean to shoot as straight as I can."
"It will be murder!" he cried wildly, and then tossing up his long arms in a helpless, distracted manner, he cried, "By God, Perry, you are as good as dead already!"
"Why, then," said I, grasping him by the arm, "listen to the voice of a dying man and one who has never accomplished anything as yet—indeed, I have been a failure all my life—"
"You, Perry? A failure—how, man, how?"
"Well, I yearned to be a poet—and failed. I tried to be a painter—and failed again. I endeavoured to become a man and have achieved nothing. I am a sentient futility! But to-night—ah, to-night kind fortune sent me—you. And you were drunk again!"
"I'm sober enough now, b'gad!"
"Drunkenness, Anthony, as you know, is the refuge for cowards and weaklings, and all unworthy such a man as Anthony Vere-Manville—"
"Egad, will you preach at me, Perry?"
"Call it so if you will, but to-night is something of an occasion and here is a setting excellently adapted to the sermon of a dying man."
And indeed it was a night to wonder at, very still and silent and filled with the splendour of a great moon whose peaceful radiance fell upon the sleeping countryside like a benediction.