Perhaps he had been ill for a long time. Perhaps Clarke was reading the play for him. He did not remember having written it. But he probably had fallen sick after its completion. What strange pranks our memories will play us! But no! He was not dreaming, and he had not been ill.
He could endure the horrible uncertainty no longer. His overstrung nerves must find relaxation in some way or break with a twang. He turned to his friend who was listening with rapt attention.
"No, I have written it, or rather, was going to write it."
"No, in all seriousness. It is mine. I told you--don't you remember--when we returned from Coney Island--that I was writing a play."
"Yes, this play. I conceived it, I practically wrote it."
"The more's the pity that Clarke had preconceived it."
"Did you leave the manuscript in your room?"
"I had, in fact, not written a line of it. No, I had not begun the actual writing."
"Why should a man of Clarke's reputation plagiarise your plays, written or unwritten?"
For already this whispered conversation had elicited a look like a stab from a lady before them.
Ernest held fast to the edge of a chair. He must cling to some reality, or else drift rudderless in a dim sea of vague apprehensions.
Was his mind giving way? No! No! No! There must be a monstrous secret somewhere, but what matter? Did anything matter? He had called on his mate like a ship lost in the fog. For the first time he had not responded. He had not understood. The bitterness of tears rose to the boy's eyes.
Above it all, melodiously, ebbed and flowed the rich accents of Reginald Clarke.
Ernest listened to the words of his own play coming from the older man's mouth. The horrible fascination of the scene held him entranced. He saw the creations of his mind pass in review before him, as a man might look upon the face of his double grinning at him from behind a door in the hideous hours of night.
They were all there! The mad king. The subtle-witted courtiers. The sombre-hearted Prince. The Queen-Mother who had loved a jester better than her royal mate, and the fruit of their shameful alliance, the Princess Marigold, a creature woven of sunshine and sin.
Swiftly the action progressed. Shadows of impending death darkened the house of the King. In the horrible agony of the rack the old jester confessed. Stripped of his cap and bells, crowned with a wreath of blood, he looked so pathetically funny that the Princess Marigold could not help laughing between her tears.