“Thank you. That will suffice. I’ll never insult my Maker by fawning for pardon in the fag hour of a misspent life.”
“The mercy of God is without limits——”
“I hope so. That I shall know better than you within the space of four-and-twenty hours. I’m afraid you mistake your mission here. You came to marry Antony, not to bury Cæsar.” Then, turning to me, he said with a flare of his old reckless wit: “Any time this six weeks you’ve been qualifying for the noose. If you’re quite ready we’ll have the obsequies to-night.”
He put Aileen’s hand in mine. The vicar married us, the Prince of Wales giving away the bride. Aileen’s pale face was shot with a faint flush, a splash of pink in either alabaster cheek. When the priest had made us man and wife she, who had just married me, leaned forward impulsively and kissed our former enemy on the forehead. The humorous gleam came back to his dulling eyes.
“Only one, Montagu. I dare say you can spare that. The rest are for a better man. Don’t cry, Aileen. ’Fore Heaven, ’tis a good quittance for you.”
He looked at the soft warmth and glow of her, now quickened to throbbing life, drew a long breath, then smiled and sighed again, her lover even to the last.
A long silence fell, which Sir Robert broke by saying with a smile, “In case Selwyn calls show him up. If I am still alive I’ll want to see him, and if I’m dead he’ll want to see me. ’Twill interest him vastly.”
Once more only he spoke. “The shadow falls,” he said to Aileen, and presently dozed fitfully; so slipped gradually into the deeper sleep from which there is no awakening this side of the tomb. Thus he passed quietly to the great beyond, an unfearing cynic to the last hour of his life.