The soldier jumped to his feet with an insane look.
“And his son,” he cried, “that should have been a rich man, succeeded to an empty legacy and a search of hate that shall be unending.”
He tossed one arm aloft, with a grandiose gesture. Mr. Tuke stared at him, his brain full of bewilderment and wonder.
“Steady, Luvaine!” said Sir David once more; then proceeded to discuss the other with admirable ingenuousness.
“It hath made a wreck of his life, as he says—this sense of wrong and loss. We have been acquainted from boys—at least since I was one—and the grievance hath enlarged upon him with the years. Not to this day has he lighted upon any clue to the stone’s whereabouts, though the cursed red stain of it has bitten into his life.”
“It hath corroded me!” cried the soldier, unabashed. He seemed to think his conduct justified by the magnitude of his loss. “I have wrought for a pittance when I should have ruffled it with the highest.”
“But, how was it lost?” asked the listener, with some secret scorn for such a bitterness of avarice as he could not conceive would demoralize other than a contemptible nature.
“Proposals were made by a syndicate for its purchase,” put in Sir David hastily. “The whole thing was a monstrous swindle, planned with every elaboration. Ronald Luvaine was ill-advised enough to let the stone out of his hands, and——”
“There was the last of it,” cried the captain madly—“and the plunge for me into a hell of disappointment and misery.”
His jaw was shaking like a rabid dog’s.