"He's not to get excited," she whispered. "And mind—mind—don't say that you think him looking badly."
She paused and laid her fingers lightly on his arm; then with a swift movement, she stepped forward, drawing him with her into the big, darkened room with its sense of preternatural quiet, and its pungent, suggestive smell of drugs and antiseptic dressings.
CHAPTER II
With a strange blending of curiosity and shrinking, Milbanke obeyed the pressure of Clodagh's hand, and moved forward into the room. The cold March daylight was partly excluded by drawn blinds, but a glow from the fire played upon the walls and the high four-post bedstead.
With the same mingling of curiosity and dread, his eyes fell at once upon this prominent article of furniture and remained fixed there in doubt and incredulity. For the moment his senses refused to acknowledge that the feverish, haggard face that stared at him from the pillows was the face of Asshlin—Asshlin, tyrannical, passionate, greedy of life.
In the hours of agony that he had passed through, the sick man's features had become shrunken, causing his eyes to stare forth preternaturally large and restless; his hair had been cropped close, to allow of the dressing of a wound over the temple, and the tight white bandages lent a strange and unfamiliar appearance to his finely shaped head. With a sick sensation, Milbanke went slowly forward.
The patient made no attempt to move as he drew near the bed, but his feverishly bright glance seemed to devour his face.
"Here he is, father!" Clodagh exclaimed softly and eagerly. "Here's Mr. Milbanke! Now, aren't you happy? He's not able to move," she explained, turning to the guest. "It gives him terrible agony to stir."
Milbanke had reached the bed; and with a sensation of awkwardness and impotence impossible to describe, he stood looking down upon Asshlin.
"My poor Denis!" he said. "My poor, poor friend! This is a bad business; I had no idea——"