“And yet I cannot understand, my poor uncle’s outbreak, except by attributing it to delirium.”
“Hem!” said Mr. Hudsley. “Well, in case there should have been any meaning and significance in it, my clerk and I will make a careful search to-morrow.”
“Yes,” murmured Stephen, “and I devoutly trust that should a later will be in existence, you may find it.”
“I hope we may,” said Mr. Hudsley. “Good-night!”
Stephen accompanied him to the door as he had accompanied the doctor and Jack, and saw him into the brougham, and then turned back into the house with a look of release, which, however, gradually changed to one of lurking fear and indefinite dread.
“Conscience makes cowards of us all.”
It makes a worse coward of Stephen Davenant than he was naturally.
As he stood in the deserted hall, and looked round, at its vast dimness, at the carved gallery and staircase, somber and dull for want of varnish, and listened to the faint, ghostly noises made by the awe-stricken servants moving to and fro overhead, a chill crept over him, and he wished that he had kept one of them, even Jack, to bear him company.
With fearful gaze he peered into the darkness, scarcely daring to cross the hall and enter the library. For all the stillness, he fancied he could hear that last shriek of the dying man ringing through the house; for all the darkness, the slim, bent figure seemed to be moving to and fro, the dark piercing eyes turned upon him with furious accusation. Even when he had summoned up courage to enter the library, locking the door after him, the eyes seemed to follow him, and with a shudder that shook him from head to foot he poured out a glass of brandy and drank it down.
The Spirit of Evil certainly invented brandy for cowards.