“That’s all right,” said Bentley; “but what if they don’t believe your story?”
“They’ll have to believe it! Here’s the knife, and here are my fingers, cut in the struggle with him. More than that,” he went on, striding quickly to the clothes-press, “here is my coat, with a slit from the shoulder to the elbow, just as he made it when he tried to stab me.”
He held up the coat, and the visitor regarded it with no small amount of curiosity, whistling softly and observing:
“By gracious! he did come near carving you up.”
“I believe he knew me!” Don savagely declared. “He must have recognized me.”
“Oh, no! it was so dark in there that a fellow couldn’t recognize any one—at least, you said it was,” Leon hastily added.
“Still, I believe he knew me, and that was why he tried to cut me. I’ll square the account with him! Wait till I show him up to-morrow!”
“Well, I hope you succeed,” said Bentley, sincere in that wish, at least. “I think I’ll be going. Your old man might come home, and I have a notion he doesn’t like me.”
Don did not object to the departure of his visitor, and, having lighted another cigarette, Leon left, as he had entered, by the back door.
Don could scarcely wait for the following day, so eager was he to denounce Renwood. He pictured to himself the sensation his revelation would create, and in his mind he saw his enemy an outcast, scorned and taunted and shunned by the village lads.