"Not from me. I am bound by an oath, David. Some day it may be that you will know. Perhaps not. You may guess what you will—you have much to go on. But from me, nothing. Now, let us settle the details. I've very little time." He glanced again at the shoddy tin clock, with a slight but noticeable shiver.
"How's that? It's hours till morning."
"I shall never see the dawn, David," said Rutton quietly.
"What—"
"I have but ten minutes more of life…. If you must know—in a word: poison…. That I be saved a blacker sin, David!"
"You mean that medicine—the silver phial?" Amber stammered, sick with horror.
"Yes. Don't be alarmed; it's slow but sure and painless, dear boy. It works infallibly within half an hour. There'll be no agony—merely the drawing of the curtain. Best of all, it leaves no traces; a diagnostician would call it heart-failure…. And thus I escape that." He nodded coolly toward the door.
"But this must not be, Rutton!" Amber rose suddenly, pushing back his chair. "Something must be done. Doggott—"
"Not so loud, please—you might alarm him. After it's all over, call him. But now—it's useless; the thing is done; there's no known antidote. Be kind to me, David, in this hour of mine extremity. There's much still to be said between us … and in seven minutes more…."
Rutton retained his clutch upon Amber's hand; and his eyes, their lustre dimmed, held Amber's, pitiful, passionate, inexorable in their entreaty. Amber sat down, his soul shaken with the pity of it.