'It's easy for you to laugh now; I doubt if it will prove a laughing matter to Lord Reginald.--Do you think he really is asleep?'
'That is exactly the question I was putting to myself when you came in. I also had a few remarks to make which I had a shrewd suspicion he did not choose to hear.'
'What did you wish to say?'
'My dear Foster, I take at least as much interest in the Marquis of Twickenham as you can do. I'm just as anxious to find out things. I thought then, as I think now, that he intends I shall find out nothing; or you either. He's been a hard nut to crack his whole life long; he means to continue uncrackable to the end.'
'He seems very ill.'
'He does not seem well.'
'As he lies there like that he looks as if he were a corpse.'
'I don't think he is, as yet.'
'What does the doctor say?'
'Death probably within four-and-twenty hours.' Foster laid his hand upon my arm.