Page:Harold Macgrath--The girl in his house.djvu/141

 Armitage set down the telephone. He looked down into the face of his despoiler. The cavernous eyes, burning like agate, the shining cheek-bones, the hollow cheeks, the veil of drabness over all—Armitage was forced to admit that the man was ill.

"I am dying. After all, it is a happy way out. I came up here  because the few happy hours I've known in years were spent in this room.  I could not die down there.  And God has brought you here at this hour!"

Armitage felt his wrath fade as a breath on a mirror fades. He was stirred by a strange compassion. It hadn't paid, then? The old scoundrel hadn't been able to get any pleasure out of his ill-gotten spoils? The way of the transgressor! He was patently in a pitiable condition.

"Shall I call a doctor?"

"Well if you wish." Armitage took up the telephone again. He was able to rout out an old friend of the family, who volunteered to come at once to the office.

"It didn't pay, Bordman. It didn't pay, did it?"