'He's dead, Sir--yes,' said his saturnine visitor, with the same faint
smile and cynical quietude.
'Speak out, Sirrah; whom do you come from?'
'The late Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Dunoran.' He spoke, as I
have said, a little thickly, like a man who had drunk his modicum of
liquor.
'You've been drinking, and you dare to mix my--my father's name with
your drunken dreams and babble--you wretched sot!'
A cloud passed over the moon just then, and Irons darkened, as if about
to vanish, like an offended apparition. But it was only for a minute,
and he emerged in the returning light, and spoke--
'A naggin of whiskey, at the Salmon House, to raise my heart before I
came here. I'm not drunk--that's sure.' He answered, quite unmoved, like
one speaking to himself.
'And--why--what can you mean by speaking of him?' repeated Mervyn,
unaccountably agitated.
'I speak _for_ him, Sir, by your leave. Suppose he greets you with a
message--and you don't care to hear it?'
'You're mad,' said Mervyn, with an icy stare, to whom the whole colloquy
began to shape itself into a dream.
'Belike _you're_ mad, Sir,' answered Irons, in a grim, ugly tone, but
with face unmoved.
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