He started back a little.
“If I had killed my brother in good reality, I would go to my hanging with joy if the only alternative were buying my safety from such a slimy, crawling reptile as you!”
“If?” he echoed, with a pale effort at another laugh.
“‘If’ was what I said. Pretty doctor you, not to know, as I have since found out, that the boy died by other means than drowning!”
In an ungovernable burst of fury I took him by the throat and drove him back against the table—and he offered no resistance.
“You dog!” I cried. “Oh, you dog, you dog! You did know it, of course, and you had the devil’s heart to lie to my father and beat him down in the dust for your own filthy ends! Had I a hand in my brother’s death? You know I had not any more than you—perhaps not so much!”
On the snap of the thought I spurned him from me and staggered back.
“Why,” I cried, staring at him standing cowering and sullen before me. “Had you, if the truth were known? You were in the house that night!”
He choked once or twice and, smoothing down the apple in his throat with a nervous hand, came out of his corner a pace or two.
“You can put two and two together,” he said in a shrill voice, defiant still, but with a whining ring in it. “What interest could I possibly have in murdering your brother? For the rest—you may be right.”