Horace obeyed, bringing his ear near to the wavering voice. He was not sympathetic, and did not pretend it; he listened without a look or a word of pity, and the sufferer's spirit rallied into its wonted expression at the sight of his cold, business face.
"I've left everything to Edmund, if he lives," gasped the dying man; "here, Scarsdale, are you sure you hear me?--and about that young Musgrave's concern, you know. I don't want the boy to hear of it; eh, do you understand?--I _had_ nothing to do preserving Musgrave's interests; do you hear me?--the boy is not to know."
"I shall not tell him," said Horace, briefly.
"Tell him!--that is not enough. He is not to know. Do you hear me? The child's a Quixote. How can I tell what he would do? He is not to hear of it! And, Scarsdale," continued the sufferer, almost piteously, in a tone of deprecating cunning, "there's Amelia; she has a little fortune, and if she'll have you, I shan't object."
"No," said Horace, looking with his eyes still fiery in their excitement, and all the superiority and contempt of youth and health upon the dying man, whose will, twenty-four hours hence, would be impotent as the grave could make it. "No!" There was almost a smile upon his lip; it was cruel life exulting over the vain intentions of the dying. A few hours, and what would _his_ objection signify? Undisguised and manifest, that thought rung in the mocking tone of the young man's reply, and looked out of his uncompassionating face.
Perhaps the congenial spirit lying there felt it!--and knew his own impotence. He threw out his shivering hands in a gesture which might be appeal--which might be passion--which was actual physical agony, a paroxysm of returning pain. The wife and her assistants came back, and Horace stood aside from the bed, without the sufferer being aware of it. "Remember, Scarsdale, the boy is not to know!" he shouted out in the height of his sufferings. Horace remained in the room with a morbid curiosity strange to himself, though his eager thoughts were with Amelia below. He was not aware that few men depart in a paroxysm of pain, and he stood there with a strange excitement, almost thinking that, for the first time, he should see a fellow-creature die.