Mr. Quayle had put me from him and arisen. There was a bad look on his face; but he motioned to George to go, and we were left alone.
The intruder stood shrugging his disordered clothes into place, and looking the while with a sort of black stealth at the barrister. His face held and haunted me. It was bleak and sallow, and grey in the hollows, with fixed dark eyes—the face, I thought, of a malignant, though injured, creature. But it did not so affect Mr. Quayle, it was evident.
“The verdict was ‘Not guilty,’ sir,” said the man, quite suddenly and vehemently.
Mr. Quayle gave an unpleasant laugh.
“Or else you wouldn’t be intrudin’ here,” he said shortly.
“I came to thank my benefactor,” said the man. “I had heard nothing till this moment of the tragic sequel.”
“Well,” said the barrister, in the same cynical tone, “you have come too late. The price of your acquittal is this little orphaned life.”
He put his arm about my shoulders. The stranger looked hard at me.
“His son?” he muttered.
“There are some verdicts,” said Mr. Quayle, “bought too dear.”