Beatrice threw her head back and laughed hysterically.
"You'll never write a play like it, Philip!" she exclaimed. "There never was anything like it before. Now, Mr. Dane, what is it you say in America when you want to introduce anybody?—shake hands with Mr. Douglas Romilly—that's it. Shake hands with the dead man here and then get on with your arresting. He must be dead if you say so, but he doesn't look it, does he?"
Philip's face had become a more natural colour. His eyes had never left the other man's. He swayed a little on his feet and his voice seemed to him to come from a long way off.
"Douglas! It isn't you, Douglas! … It isn't you really?"
"I wish you'd all leave off staring at me as though I were a ghost," the other man answered, almost pettishly. "I'm Douglas Romilly, right enough. You needn't look in such a blue funk, Philip," he went on, his fingers mechanically rearranging his collar and tie, which Beatrice had disarranged. "I served you a beastly trick and you went for me. I should have done the same if I'd been in your place. On the other hand, I rather turned the tables on you by keeping quiet. Perhaps it's up to me to explain."
Elizabeth, feeling her way by the mantelpiece, came to Philip's side. His arm supported her, holding her as though in a vise.
"Is that your cousin?" she whispered hoarsely. "Is that Douglas Romilly?
Is he alive, after all?"
Philip had no words, but his face spoke for him. Then they both turned to listen. The newcomer had dragged a chair towards him and was leaning over the back of it. He addressed Philip.
"We met, as you know, on the canal path that beastly afternoon," he began. "I was jolly well ashamed of myself for having made love to Beatrice, and all the rest of it, and you were mad with rage. We had a sort of tussle and you threw me into the canal. It was a nasty dark spot just underneath the bridge. I expect I was stunned for a moment, but it was only for a moment. I came to long before I choked, and when I remembered your grip upon my throat, I decided I was safer where I was. I could swim like a duck, you know, and though it was filthy water I took a long dive. When I came up again—gad, what disgusting water it was!—you were tearing off like a creature possessed. That's the true history of our little fracas."
"But afterwards?" Philip asked wonderingly. "What happened afterwards?"