“Don’t get up. I’m going.”
A sudden hardening change came over Quixtus’s features.
“Stay,” said he. “It was very kind of you to bring this; but I’m afraid it has nothing to do with me.”
“Nothing to do with you?”
She regarded him in amazement. “Your lifelong friend is dying and implores you to come to him, and you say it’s nothing to do with you?”
“He was a villain, a base villain,” said Quixtus, with quivering lips.
“Stuff and nonsense!” cried Clementina indignantly.
Had the man gone absolutely crazy after all?
“I am saying what I know,” he returned darkly. “He was no friend to me.”
“And he wants you to go to his death-bed?” asked Mrs. Fontaine, taking her elbows off the table. “How very painful!”