“I am, sir, faithfully yours,
“Noel Dmitri Farquhar.
“The Lilacs, Monkswell, 2/7/03.”
When he had finished, he read over the letter with satisfaction. While he was so doing, somebody opened the door and came noiselessly in. Farquhar glanced angrily over his shoulder; but, seeing only Lucian de Saumarez, he went on with his reading, after taking the precaution of drawing his blotter across the revolver to hide it. With an indescribably guilty and shamefaced air, like a dog that has been caught stealing, Lucian went and lay down on the sofa. He was holding a handkerchief to his lips.
Farquhar closed the letter and took the revolver, glancing again at Lucian. Lucian heard the movement, turned his head, and for the moment took away the stained handkerchief.
“Farquhar, old man—” he began; he could not get any further.
Farquhar set his teeth on his underlip and swore. He sat immovable, looking dangerous, all rebellion; and then the inevitable law of his nature asserted itself, as it had done before, as in him it always would: the power that held him in bondage. He tore the letter across and across and across again and flung the fragments into the grate; he took up the revolver by the barrel and hurled it through the window across the flower-beds into the fountain on the lawn. He came and knelt by Lucian’s side, and lifted him with fierce tenderness against his breast.
“Confound you! What have you been doing to yourself?” he said.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
when a predominant preference was found in the original book.
Except for those changes noted below, alternative spellings, misspellings
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
[Page 52]: “chestnut gown” replaced by “chestnut gown.”.
[Page 83]: “streaming with blood” replaced by “streaming with blood.”.
[Page 125]: “gossipped” replaced by “gossiped”.
[Page 138]: “disqualifications” replaced by “disqualifications.”.
[Page 161]: “gallon a day,’”” replaced by “gallon a day,””.
[Page 165]: ‘I’d like to replaced by “I’d like to.