Jessup gave a faint groan.
"I knew that he was skulking there in hope of seeing her again."
"It is a mistake!" exclaimed Jessup, with more force in his voice than he had as yet shown.
Storms laughed mockingly.
"So you mean to shield him? You—you tell me that young master wasn't in your house that night: that your daughter did not see him; that he did not shoot you for being in the way? Perhaps you will expect me to believe all that; but I saw it!"
As these cruel words were rained over him, the sick man settled down in his bed, and seemed hardened into iron. The fire of combat glowed in his deep-set eyes, and his hand clenched a fold of the bed-clothes, as if both had been chiselled out of marble.
"No one shot me. It was my own careless handling of the gun," he said. "No one shot me."
Storms laughed again.
"Oh, no, Jessup, that'll never do! What a man sees he sees."
"No one shot me—it was myself."