Wingrave brought a plate of sandwiches from the sideboard, and mixed a whisky and soda. He set them down in front of his guest, and turned away with the evening paper in his hand.
“I am going into the next room for some cigarettes,” he remarked.
He was gone scarcely two minutes. When he returned, the room was in darkness. He moved suddenly towards the electric lights, but was pushed back by an unseen hand. A man’s hot breath fell upon his cheek, a hoarse, rasping voice spoke to him out of the black shadows.
“Don’t touch the lights! Don’t touch the lights, I say!”
“What folly is this?” Wingrave asked angrily. “Are you mad?”
“Not now,” came the quick answer. “I have been. It has come to me here, in the darkness. I know why she is angry, I know why she will not speak to me. It is—because I failed.”
Wingrave laughed, and moved towards the lights.
“We have had enough of this tomfoolery,” he said scornfully. “If you won’t listen to reason—”
He never finished his sentence. He had stumbled suddenly against a soft body, he had a momentary impression of a white, vicious face, of eyes blazing with insane fury. Quick to act, he struck—but before his hand descended, he had felt the tearing of his shirt, the sharp, keen pain in his chest, the swimming of his senses. Yet even then he struck again with passionate anger, and his assailant went down amongst the chairs with a dull, sickening crash!
Then there was silence in the room. Wingrave made an effort to drag himself a yard or two towards the bell, but collapsed hopelessly. Richardson, in a few moments, staggered to his feet.