"Yes,--but now, take off that coat."
"B-but it's the only one I've got!"
"You shall have mine," said Barnabas and, throwing aside his cloak,
he stripped off that marvellous garment (whose flattened revers were
never to become the vogue, after all), and laid it upon the table
beside Barrymaine who seemed as he leaned there to be shaken by
strange twitchings and tremblings.
"Oh, Beverley," he muttered, "it would have been a good th-thing for
me if somebody had s-strangled me at birth. No!--d-don't light the
candle!" he cried suddenly, for Barnabas had sought and found the
tinder-box, "don't! d-don't!"
But Barnabas struck and the tinder caught, then, as the light came,
Barrymaine shrank away and away, and, crouching against the wall,
stared down at himself, at his right sleeve ripped and torn, and at
certain marks that spattered and stained him, here and there, awful
marks much darker than the cloth. Now as he looked, a great horror
seemed to come upon him, he trembled violently and, stumbling forward,
sank upon his knees beside the table, hiding his sweating face
between his arms. And, kneeling thus, he uttered soft, strange,
unintelligible noises and the table shook and quivered under him.
"Come, you must take off that coat!"
Very slowly Barrymaine lifted his heavy head and looked at Barnabas
with dilating eyes and with his mouth strangely drawn and twisted.
"Oh, Beverley!" he whispered, "I--I think I'm--"
"You must give me that coat!" persisted Barnabas.
Still upon his knees, Barrymaine began to fumble at the buttons of
that stained, betraying garment but, all at once, his fingers seemed
to grow uncertain, they groped aimlessly, fell away, and he spoke in
a hoarse whisper, while upon his lip was something white, like foam.
"I--oh I--Beverley, I--c-can't!"
And now, all at once, as they stared into each other's eyes,
Barnabas leaning forward, strong and compelling, Barrymaine upon his
knees clinging weakly to the table, sudden and sharp upon the
stillness broke a sound--an ominous sound, the stumble of a foot
that mounted the stair.
Uttering a broken cry Barrymaine struggled up to his feet, strove
desperately to speak, his distorted mouth flecked with foam, and
beating the air with frantic hands pitched over and thudded to the
floor.
Then the door opened and Mr. Smivvle appeared who, calling upon
Barrymaine's name, ran forward and fell upon his knees beside that
convulsed and twisted figure.
"My God, Beverley!" he cried, "how comes he like this--what has
happened?"
"Are you his friend?"
"Yes, yes, his friend--certainly! Haven't I told you the hand of a
Smivvle, sir--"
"Tonight he killed Jasper Gaunt."
"Eh? Killed? Killed him?"
"Murdered him--though I think more by accident than design."
"Killed him! Murdered him!"
"Yes. Pull yourself together and listen. Tomorrow the hue and cry
will be all over London, we must get him away--out of the country if
possible."