"Denis!"
"'Tis true! I'm not frightened of death—I hope I'm man enough to face a natural law. 'Twould have been better if I'd had to face it thirty years ago."
"Denis, don't! I beg you to keep quiet——"
"Quiet? I tell you there's not much quiet for a man like me. 'Tisn't what I'm going to that's troubling me, but what I'm leaving behind. I'll be paying me own score on the other side; but here 'tis others will be paying it for me."
His burning eyes fixed themselves on Milbanke's.
"But, my dear old friend——"
"Don't talk to me, James! Don't waste words on me. I'm broke inside and out. I'm smashed. I'm done for." A spasm of pain, mental and physical, twisted his features. "The weak, worthless egotist has come to the end of his rope!" He tried to laugh.
Milbanke, in deep apprehension, laid his hand lightly on his shoulder.
"Denis," he pleaded, "don't talk like this! Don't torture yourself like this!"
Asshlin groaned.