We moistened the parched lips, and the patient quickly revived.
It seemed, however, that his poor injured brain had been working in the interval, for when he was quite conscious, he looked at me piercingly with an agonized confusion which I shall never forget, and said, "I must not deceive myself.

It was no dream, but all a grim reality." Then his eyes roved round the room.

As they caught sight of the two figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed he went on, "If I were not sure already, I would know from them." For an instant his eyes closed, not with pain or sleep but voluntarily, as though he were bringing all his faculties to bear.
When he opened them he said, hurriedly, and with more energy than he had yet displayed, "Quick, Doctor, quick, I am dying! I feel that I have but a few minutes, and then I must go back to death, or worse! Wet my lips with brandy again.

I have something that I must say before I die.

Or before my poor crushed brain dies anyhow.