“You’ll stick to it, I know, for you’re a fellow that speaks the truth.  I nearly thrashed you for it, once.  Remember?  You said I wasn’t fit for the society of any good woman.  And you were right—­quite right.  I never have been.  Yet you ended by sending me the best woman in the world.  What made you do that, I wonder?”

Carey did not answer.  His face was sternly composed.  He had not once glanced at the woman who sat on the other side of Coningsby’s bed.

Coningsby went on unheeding.

“I drove her away from me, and you—­you sent her back.  I don’t think I could have done that for the woman I loved.  For you do love her, eh, Carey?  I remember seeing it in your face that first night I brought you here.  It comes back to me.  You were standing before her portrait in the library.  You didn’t know I saw you.  I was drunk at the time.  But I’ve remembered it since.”

Again he paused.  His breath was slowing down.  It came spasmodically, with long silences between.

Carey had listened with his eyes fixed and hard, staring straight before him, but now slowly at length he turned his head, and looked down at the man who was dying.

“Hadn’t you better tell me what it is you want me to do?” he said.

“Ah!” Coningsby seemed to rouse himself.  “It isn’t much, after all,” he said.  “I made my will only this morning.  It was on my way back that I had the smash.  I was quite sober, only I couldn’t see very well, and I lost control.  All my property goes to my wife.  That’s all settled.  But there’s one thing left—­one thing left—­which I am going to leave you.  It’s the only thing I value, but there’s no nobility about it, for I can’t take it with me where I’m going.  I want you, Carey—­when I’m dead—­to marry the woman you love, and give her happiness.  Don’t wait for the sake of decency!  That consideration never appealed to me.  I say it in her presence, that she may know it is my wish.  Marry her, man—­you love each other—­did you think I didn’t know?  And take her away to some Utopia of your own, and—­and—­teach her—­to forget me.”

His voice shook and ceased.  His wife had slipped to her knees by the bed, hiding her face.  Carey sat mute and motionless, but the grim look had passed from his face.  It was almost tender.

Gaspingly at length Coningsby spoke again:  “Are you going to do it, Carey?  Are you going to give me your promise?  I shall sleep the easier for it.”

Carey turned to him and gripped one of the man’s powerless hands in his own.  For a moment he did not speak—­it almost seemed he could not.  Then at last, very low, but resolute his answer came: 

“I promise to do my part,” he said.

In the silence that followed he rose noiselessly and moved away.

He left Naomi still kneeling beside the bed, and as he passed out he heard the dying man speak her name.  But what passed between them he never knew.