"
"It will be murder!" he cried wildly, and then tossing up his long
arms in a helpless, distracted manner, he cried, "By God, Perry, you
are as good as dead already!"
"Why, then," said I, grasping him by the arm, "listen to the voice of
a dying man and one who has never accomplished anything as
yet--indeed, I have been a failure all my life--"
"You, Perry? A failure--how, man, how?"
"Well, I yearned to be a poet--and failed. I tried to be a
painter--and failed again. I endeavoured to become a man and have
achieved nothing. I am a sentient futility! But to-night--ah, to-night
kind fortune sent me--you. And you were drunk again!"
"I'm sober enough now, b'gad!"
"Drunkenness, Anthony, as you know, is the refuge for cowards and
weaklings, and all unworthy such a man as Anthony Vere-Manville--"
"Egad, will you preach at me, Perry?"
"Call it so if you will, but to-night is something of an occasion and
here is a setting excellently adapted to the sermon of a dying man."
And indeed it was a night to wonder at, very still and silent and
filled with the splendour of a great moon whose peaceful radiance fell
upon the sleeping countryside like a benediction.
"Look," said I, "look round you, Anthony, upon this wonder of earth
and heaven! Does it not wake in you some consciousness of divinity,
some assured hope that we in our nobler selves are one with the
Infinite Good?"
"Why, to be sure, now you mention it," he answered easily, glancing
from me to the radiant heaven and back again, "it is a very glorious
night!"
"Yes!" said I.
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