“Why don’t you leave the hole, since you hate it so?” asked Larry, with what scant cheeriness he could muster; he was yielding himself slowly to the place, though he fought bravely against his superstitious weakness.
“Am I fit to be moved?” was Manning’s query in reply.
“But you will be better soon, and then”--
“I shall be worse before I am better, and I shall never be better in this life or in this place. No, no, I must die in my hole, like a dog. Like a dog!” and John Manning repeated the words with a wistful face, “Do you remember the faithful beast who always welcomed me here when we came up before we went to Europe?”
“Of course I do,” said Larry, glad to get the sick man away from his sickness, and to ease his mind by talk on a healthy topic; “he was a splendid fellow, too. Cæsar, that was his name, wasn’t it?”
“Cæsar Borgia I called him,” was Manning’s sad reply. “I knew you could not have forgotten him. He is dead. Cæsar Borgia is dead. He was the last living thing that loved me--except you, Larry, I know--and he is dead. He died this morning. He came to my bedside as usual, and he licked my hand gently and looked up in my face, and laid him down alongside of me on the carpet here and died. Poor Cæsar Borgia--he loved me, and he is dead! And you, Larry, you must not stay here. The air is fatal. Every breath may be your last. When you have heard what I want, you must be off at once. If you like, you may come up again to the funeral before your leave is up. I saw you had three weeks.”
Laurence Laughton moved uneasily in his chair and swallowed with difficulty. “John,” he managed to say after an effort, “if you talk to me like that, I shall go at once. Tell me what it is you want me to do for you.”
“I want you to take care of my wife and of my child, if there be one born to me after my death.”
“Your wife?” repeated Larry, in staring surprise.
“You did not know I was married? I knew it at the time, as the boy said,” and John Manning smiled bitterly.
“Where is she?” was Larry’s second query.
“In this house. You shall see her before you go. And after the funeral I want you to get her away from here with what speed you can. Sell this house for what it will bring, and put the money into government bonds. You may find it hard to persuade her to move, for she seems to have a strange liking for this place. She breathes freely in the deadly air that suffocates me. But you must not let her remain here; this is no place for her now that a new life and new duties are before her.”