His manner was restless, and his hand, as it pressed mine, felt hot and feverish.
"I am sure you are not well," I said, following him into the gloom of a deep, old-fashioned doorway.
"Am I not? Well, I don't know--perhaps I am not. My blood burns in my veins to-night like fire. Nay, thou wilt learn nothing from my pulse, thou sucking Æsculapius! Mine is a sickness not to be cured by drugs. I must let blood for it."
The short, hard laugh with which he said this troubled me still more.
"Speak out," I said--"for Heaven's sake, speak out! You have something on your mind--what is it?"
"I have something on my hands," he replied, gloomily. "Work. Work that must be done quickly, or there will be no peace for any of us. Look here, Damon--if you had a wife, and another man stood before the world as her betrothed husband--if you had a wife, and another man spoke of her as his--boasted of her--behaved in the house as if it were already his own--treated her servants as though he were their master--possessed himself of her papers--extorted money from her--brought his friends, on one pretext or another, about her house--tormented her, day after day, to marry him ... what would you do to such a man as this?"
"Make my own marriage public at once, and set him at defiance," I replied.
"Ay, but...."
"But what?"
"That alone will not content me. I must punish him with my own hand."