"Well, he was my father, and of his own will he had never given me a halfpenny in my life. Surely I had a right to something?"
"Let the robbery go," Douglas said, leaning across the table. "It's true that I took but my own—but no more of that. At least I never raised my hand against him."
The man in the chair beat with the tips of his fingers upon the table by his side. He spoke in a dull, unemotional tone.
"Perhaps not, but while you robbed he slept. I was as gentle as you and quieter, but in the midst of it he woke up, and I found his eyes wide open, watching me. I saw his fingers stiffen—in a moment he would have been upon me—so I struck him down. You heard him call and came back. Yet we neither of us thought him dead. I did not wish to kill him. Do you remember how we stood side by side and shuddered?
"Don't!" Douglas cried sharply. "Don't. I wish you would go away."
The man in the chair took no notice. There was a retrospective light in his dark eyes. He tapped upon the table again with his skinny forefinger.
"Just a little blue mark upon his temple," he continued, in the same hard, emotionless voice. "We stood and looked at it, you and I. It was close upon morning then, you know—it seemed to grow light as we stood there, didn't it? You tried to bring him to. I knew that it was no use. I knew then that he was dead."
Douglas reeled where he stood, and every atom of colour had left his cheeks.
"I wish you would go away, or be silent," he moaned. "You will send me mad—as you are."
Then the man in the chair smiled, and awful though his impassiveness had been, that smile was worse.