"What's that? What's that?" he rapped out, sharply. "_Your_ shot, Sir
Nigel? This is something I haven't heard of before, and it's likely to
cause trouble. Explain, please!"
But Merriton was past explaining anything just then. For he had bowed his
head in his hands and was sobbing in great, heart-wrung sobs with Doctor
Bartholomew's arms about him, sobs that told of the nerve-strain which
gave them birth, that told of the tenseness under which he had lived
these last weeks. And now the thread had snapped, and all the broken,
jangling nerves of the man had been loosed and torn his control to atoms.
The doctor shook him gently, but with firm fingers.
"Don't be a fool, boy--don't be a fool!" he said over and over again,
as he waved the other away, and, taking out a little phial from his
waistcoat pocket, dropped a dose from it into a wine-glass and forced it
between the man's lips. "Don't make an ass of yourself, Nigel. The shot
you fired was nothing--the mere whim of a man, whose brain had been fired
by champagne and who wasn't therefore altogether responsible for his
actions.
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