of the throat. He coughed, suddenly, briefly, terribly, and with a swift impatient movement of his hot corded fingers he snatched a towel from the rack beside the water-basin, pressed his lowered face into it and then stared for a moment with an expression of intent and fascinated disgust into its folds, then he flung the bloodied rag away impatiently.
“You know,” he said again more calmly, and for the first time now with a touch of weariness, as if the fierce flame of this incredible energy of passion which had thus far upheld him had now been spent. “Why, you know nothing. It took a man to hate like that,” he said…. "—a better man than you could ever be—yes!… with no more lung than a rabbit, I’m still a better man than you could ever be, for you are nothing but a thing without the courage even of your own rotten convictions—
“God!” he looked with weary disgust from one to the other as they sat sullen, dumbly sodden, saying nothing. “The two of you! What a pair!… And to think of the time I wasted hating you… to think of all the time when I might have been pushing daisies in some quiet spot… keeping myself alive by thinking of this moment.” His body was shaken again by a horrible soundless laughter. “Christ!… To think that I should ever have wanted to kill either of you.”
“To kill us!” said Robert hoarsely, not with fear but accusingly, as if he were collecting damning evidence in a trial.
“Yes,” Upshaw answered with the same weary tranquillity, “to kill you!… I’ve breathed and drunk and thought it for two years. I’ve lived just for this moment. I came two thousand miles across the continent to blow your brains out….”
“Did you hear him?” cried Robert, jumping up from the table. “Did you hear what he said, Martha? Did you hear him threaten me?”
“Sit down!” said Upshaw quietly. “I’ve seen you now and I’m satisfied. I wouldn’t touch you. Why, God-damn you, you’re not worth it, either of you.” Again he surveyed them with slow loathing, and broke into his soundless laughter. “Kill you! Why, I wouldn’t do either of you so big a favour. You don’t deserve such luck! I’ll let you live and rot together…. Take her!… Take her!” he cried, more strongly, his eyes burning into fury. “Take her!… But before you do”—with a swift movement he withdrew from his pocket a small and crumpled wad of dollar bills—“here! I want to give you something!” And he flung them straight at Robert’s face, “Take that… and go and get yourself a good prostitute while you’re at it!”
