For an instant Asshlin answered nothing; then an odd sound—something between a laugh and a sob—shook him.
"James!" he cried. "James!"
But Milbanke leant forward hastily.
"Not a word!" he said. "Not one word! If thanks are due, it is from me to you. It is not every day that human responsibilities fall to an old bachelor of my age."
Asshlin remained silent. Dissipated, blunted, degenerate though he might be, his native intuition was unimpaired; and in a flash of illumination he saw the grade of nobility, the high point of honour to which this prosaic, unimaginative man had attained in that moment of need. With a pang of acute pain, he freed his uninjured arm and shakingly held out his hand.
"There are no friends like the old friends, James!" he said in a broken voice.
CHAPTER III
Asshlin scarcely spoke again during the early portion of that day. The immense effort of his explanation to Milbanke left him correspondingly weak; though through all his exhaustion, a look of peace and satisfaction was visible in his eyes.
During the whole morning Milbanke remained at his bedside, only leaving the room to partake—at Clodagh's urgent request—of a hurried meal in the deserted dining-room. At twelve o'clock the nurse resumed her duties, and soon afterwards the dispensary doctor from Carrigmore drove over to see his patient. Before he came into the sick-room Milbanke left it; but when—his examination over—he departed with a whispered injunction to the nurse, he found the stranger waiting for him in the corridor.
Milbanke stepped forward as he appeared, and silently motioned him down the passage to his own room, inviting him to enter with a punctilious gesture.