"Don't think I want to go back on it.You've won the right to make the experiment - if we ignore Uncle Walter.But-well, you'll laugh, yet, on my honor, Tom, I've got a feeling I'd rather you didn't.It isn't nerves.I'm not nervy any more than you are.I'm not suggesting that I go now, of course.But I do ask you to think better of it and chuck the thing.""Why?"
"Well, one can't help one's feelings.I do feel a rum sort of convictionat the bottom of my mind that it's not good enough.I can't explain; there are no words for it that I know, but it's growing on me.Intuition, perhaps.""Intuition of what?"
"I can't tell you.But I ask you not to go." "You were going if you'd won the toss?""I know."
"Then your growing intuition is only because I won it.Hanged if I don't think you want to funk me, old man!""I couldn't do that.But it's different me going and you going.I've got nothing to live for.Don't think I'm maudlin, or any rot of that sort; but you know all about the past.I've never mentioned it to you, and, of course, you haven't to me; and I never should have.But I will now.I loved Mary with all my heart and soul, Tom.She didn't know how much, and probably I didn't either.But that's done, and no man on earth rejoices in her great happiness more than I do.And no man on earth is going to be a better or a truer friend to you and her than, please God, I shall be.But that being so, can't you see the rest? My life ended in a way when the dream of my life ended.I attach no importance to living for itself, and if anything final happened to me it wouldn't leave a blank anywhere.You're different.In sober honesty you oughtn't to run into any needless danger - real or imaginary.I'm thinking of Mary only when I say that - not you.""But I deny the danger."
Yes; only you might listen.So did I, but I eny it no longer.The case is altered when I tell you in all seriousness - when I take my oath if you like - that I do believe now there is something in this.I don't say it's supernatural, and I don't say it isn't; but I do feel deeply impressed in my mind now, and it's growing stronger every minute, that there's something here out of the common and really infernally dangerous."The other looked at him in astonishment."What bee has got into your bonnet?""Don't call it that.It's a conviction, Tom.Do be guided by me, old chap!"The sailor flushed a little, emptied his glass, and rose.
"If you really wanted to choke me off, you chose a funny way to do so.Surely it only needed this to determine anybody.If you, as a sane person, honestly believe there's a pinch of danger in that blessed place, then I certainly sleep there to-night, or else wake there.""Let me come, too, then, Tom."
"That be damned for a yarn! Ghosts don't show up for two people - haven't got pluck enough.If I get any sport, I'll be quite straight about it, and you shall try your luck to-morrow.""I can only make it a favor; and not for your own sake, either.""I know.Mary will be sleeping the sleep of the just in the next room.how little she'll guess! Perhaps, if I see an apparition worthy of the Golden Age, I'll call her up.""Do oblige me, May."
"In anything on earth but this thing.It's really too late now.Don't you see you've defeated your own object? You mustn't ask me to throw up the sponge to your sudden intuition of danger sprung on me at the eleventh hour.I won the toss, and can't take my orders from you, old chap, can I?"The other, in his turn, grew a little warm.
"All right.I've spoken.I think you're rather a fool to be so obstinate.It isn't as if a nervous old woman was talking to you.But you'll go your own way.It doesn't matter a button to me, and I only made it a favor for somebody else's sake.""We'll leave it at that, then.May I trouble you for the key? And your revolver, too.I haven't got mine here."Henry hesitated.The key was in the pocket of his jacket."It is a matter of honor, Lennox," said the sailor.
The other handed over the key on this speech, and prepared to go."I'll get the revolver," he said.
"Thanks.Look me up in the morning, if you're awake first," added May; but the other did not answer.
He let Tom precede him, and then turned out the lights.Other lights he also extinguished as they left the hall and ascended the stairs.Theyounger's pride was struggling for mastery; but he conquered it and spoke again.
"I wish to Heaven you could see it from another point of view than your own, Tom.""I have no point of view.You're rather exasperating, and don't seem to understand that, even if I might have changed my mind before, it's impossible now.""That's really only a foolish sort of pride.If I chose my words clumsily -""You did.The devil and all his angels wouldn't make me climb down now."The younger left him, and returned in a minute or two with the revolver.
"Good-night," he said.
"Good-night, old boy.Thank you.Loaded?" "In all the chambers.Funny you should want it." "Take it back, then."But Henry did not answer, and they parted.Each sought his own bedroom, and while Lennox retired at once and might have been expected to pass a night more mentally peaceful than the other, in reality it was not so.
The younger slept ill, while May suffered no emotion but annoyance.He was contemptuous of Henry.It seemed to him that he had taken a rather mean and unsporting line, nor did he believe for a moment that he was honest.Lennox had a modern mind; he had been through the furnace of war; he had received a first-class education.It seemed impossible to imagine that he spoke the truth, or that his sudden suspicion of real perils, beyond human power to combat, could be anything but a spiteful attempt to put May off, after he himself had lost the toss.Yet that seemed unlike a gentleman.Then the allusion to Mary perturbed the sailor.He could not quarrel with the words, but he resented the advice, seeing what it was based upon.
His anger lessened swiftly, however, and before he started his adventure he had dismissed Henry from his mind.He put on pyjamasand a dressing-gown, took a candle, a railway-rug, his watch, and the loaded revolver.
