His thin, nerveless fingers were fumbling with the bulky envelope, which seemed to contain a quantity of folded papers.
“Doctor,” he whispered at last, “I—I want to burn—all these—all—every one of them. Burn them entirely.”
“As you wish, my dear friend,” responded the hunchback, eyeing the envelope eagerly, and wondering what it might contain. “I’ll put a match to them in the stove yonder.”
The invalid, by dint of great effort, managed to move himself so that his eyes could fall upon the little door in the round iron stove, in which, however, no fire was burning, even though the day was bitterly cold.
Yet he hesitated, hesitated as though he dared not trust the hungry little man who had befriended him.
“Do you wish them destroyed?” the Doctor again inquired.
The dying man nodded, at the same moment raising his finger and motioning that he could not speak.
Diamond waited. He saw that the patient was vainly endeavouring to articulate some words.
For several moments there was a dead silence.
At last the nameless man spoke again, very softly and indistinctly. Indeed, the Doctor was compelled to bend low to catch the words: