The man who was lurking so far as he could in the shadows of the room said nothing—but his eyes seemed to become like balls of red fire, and his livid cheeks were horrible to look upon. Even Joan was startled.
"You knew of these things, David?" she cried.
"Ay," he answered, "I knew. What of it?"
"Can you ask? You have drifted far away from us, David, yet you, too, are a Strong and the last of our race. He was murdered, and as yet the man who slew him goes unpunished. Can you ask me then what should be the purpose of my life? It is to see him hang."
She had risen to her feet, a grim, threatening figure in the unshaded lamplight. The yellow glare fell upon her hard, set face, her tightly compressed lips and black eyebrows. Of a sudden David realised her strange and wonderful likeness to the dead man. His own bloodless lips parted, and the room rang with horrid laughter, surely the laughter of a lunatic.
"Oh, it is a wonderful purpose that," he cried. "To see him hang—hang by the neck. Bah! What concern of yours, Joan, is it, I wonder?"
"I am his daughter."
"And I his son. And, listen, my sister, here is news for you. It was no living man at whose door his death lies, but at a woman's. A woman's, I tell you. You understand? I swear it."
She looked at him doubtfully. Surely he was raving.
"A woman's, David?"