'Mine'll just hold out,' said Watson, presently, with a humorous inflexion—'it'll bury me, I think—with a few shillings over. But I couldn't have afforded another year.'
There was silence a while—till a nurse came in to make up the fire. Fenwick began to talk of old friends, and current exhibitions; and presently tea made its appearance. Watson's strength seemed to revive. He sat more upright in his chair, his voice grew stronger, and he dallied with his tea, joking hoarsely with his nurse, and asking Fenwick all the questions that occurred to him. His face, in its rugged pallor and emaciation, and his great head, black or iron-grey on the white pillows, were so fine that Fenwick could not take his eyes from him; with the double sense of the artist, he saw the subject in the man; a study in black and white hovered before him.
When the nurse had withdrawn, and they were alone again, in a silence made more intimate still by the darkness of the panelled walls, which seemed to isolate them from the rest of the room, enclosing them in a glowing ring of lamp and firelight, Fenwick was suddenly seized by an impulse he could not master. He bent towards the sick man.
'Watson!—do you remember advising me to marry when we met in Paris?'
'Perfectly.'
The invalid turned his haggard eyes upon the speaker, in a sudden sharp attention.
There was a pause; then Fenwick said, with bent head, staring into the fire:
'Well—I am married.'
Watson gave a hoarse 'Phew!'—and waited.
'My wife left me twelve years ago and took our child with her. I don't know whether they are alive or dead. I thought I'd like to tell you. It would have been better if I hadn't concealed it, from you—and—and other friends.'