"It is cold," he assented softly, with a shiver.
Still kneeling on the hearth, he contemplated the other as though he were seeing him now for the first time. The feeble, romantic face before him was not so pallid as his face; those enlarged, questioning eyes were not so strange as his eyes. At that stare of undefined alarm he felt, despite all his jealousy, contempt, and hatred, a twinge of weakness; he remembered all the other's helpless attitudes that he had sustained and eased. Of a sudden the habit of protection grappled with his resolve, and might have conquered, for a time at any rate, had he not recalled the sufferings of the beloved.
He rose and approached the wheel chair. The newspaper was in his left hand, half concealed, like a weapon, in the folds of his robe.
He heard a feeble cry:
"What has happened? What has happened?"
"And I who have eaten his bread," thought Hamoud, in sudden shame and horror.
If only some one would come! But the shadowy perspective of the living room remained empty; and there was nowhere any sound except the beating of his heart.
He lifted the bottle containing the solution of arsenic.
"Have not taken any of this?" He pronounced in a tone of suffocation. "Remember must never take it until Hamoud has dropped it."
He set down the bottle. It fell upon its side. But alas! it did not break.