"Refuse! You will not refuse. Consider! In forty-eight or fifty hours I shall be dead. Nothing can alter that. I shall be where the hand of the law cannot touch me. What can you do against a dead man? Personal vengeance on me is impossible. On the other hand, if you will do what I wish, then I will tell you where the money is, so that you will have no difficulty in obtaining it. You have much to gain and nothing to lose by falling in with my desire."
"But I shall be able to get at the money in any case."
"No, that you never shall unless you get my help."
Gilbert thought for a while. The coolness of Silwood's proposition startled him; yet there was much to recommend it.
"Let me consider for a few moments what you have said," he remarked to Silwood; "and I will tell you my decision."
CHAPTER XXXVII
Beckoning to Hankey, the detective, to follow him, Gilbert went from the hospital tent into the open air to consider quietly what he should do. He was not sorry to get out of the atmosphere of the tent, which reeked with iodoform; where also the sight of so many poor stricken and agonized wretches harrowed his feelings.
Just outside the tent, he encountered the doctor who had conducted him to the bedside of Cooper Silwood, alias James Russell.
"Did you find him quite sensible, as I said?" asked the doctor.