Jack glanced round rather dubiously.
“And of course we shall see you at the Square?”
This invitation Jack accepted heartily, and once more he wrung Stephen’s hand.
“Good-night, good-night, my dear Jack,” said Stephen, and he took a candle from the table to light him down the stairs, and smiled till every tooth in his head showed like a grave-stone.
Then, as Jack’s heavy step faded away and was lost, Stephen went back into the room, closed the door, and sinking into a chair sat motionless, with folded arms and haggard face.
“Yes, yes,” he muttered, “I have played the best game—I have gulled him. Another man would have attempted to thwart him openly, and have raised a storm. My plan is the wiser. But to think that fate should have played me such a trick! and I thought she was safe and secure!” and he wiped the drops of cold sweat from his knitted brow. “Fool, fool that I was! Better to have left her there in the heart of the Forest! And yet—and yet—” he mused, “it is not so bad. The man might have been more powerful and cunning than the idiot whom I have in the hollow of my hand. Curse him! curse him! I never look on his face but I tremble. I hate him!” and he stretched out his closed hand as if with a curse.
As he did so it came into contact with Jack’s glass.
In a paroxysm of fury he caught up the glass and dashed it into the fire-place.
It relieved and brought him to his senses.
With a gesture of self-contempt he rose and rang the bell.