His passion had been steadily rising, and as he shouted out the last word the old man jumped up from his chair and with outstretched arm pointed to the window. It was getting very dark, and suddenly the threatening storm burst in a torrent of heavy rain; it rattled on the zinc roof of the verandah with the noise of musketry, leaping up from the asphalte in white sheets and flooding all the gullies; then a blinding flash of lightning seemed to fill the room, and Melville sank back in his chair, hiding his eyes and waiting for the thunder, which swiftly followed like a roar of artillery. When the crash died away, Melville rose and faced his uncle, who had not moved a muscle.
"It's to be war between us?" he said.
Sir Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't fight with blackguards," he answered. "Do your worst; do what you please—but go."
Melville knew that he had lost; his second castle in the air was shattered and he could not hope to build it up again. Mrs. Sinclair had destroyed the first, Sir Geoffrey had destroyed the second, and Melville was once more face to face with ruin. Outside the wind had risen and the hail was beating into the room, streaming down the windows and blurring all the view. In horrible succession flash of lightning followed flash of lightning, silhouetting everything in the room for an instant before darkness, made more horrible by the deafening crashes of thunder, engulfed it all again. And swift as the lightning that blazed and then was gone, thoughts and schemes shot through Melville's brain. If only Sir Geoffrey were dead, struck by the jagged blades of flame that tore down from the storm-centre in the sky above them, everything would be well. He had made no will—he had said so—and if only he were dead there would be salvation for Melville—salvation in the share of his uncle's money which the law would give him.
Sir Geoffrey strode towards him.
"Storm or no storm," he shouted, striving to make himself heard above the din of wind and hail and thunder, "go. I disown you for the liar and swindler and blackmailer that you are. Not one shilling more shall you ever have whether for my wife or for yourself. Go!"
He seized Melville by the shoulder, and in an instant the men were locked together. Melville was taken by surprise, and even if he had not been he was not more than a match for his uncle, in spite of the difference in their ages. For one brief moment they swayed together, Sir Geoffrey wrestling to throw his nephew out, Melville wrestling to free himself from his uncle's grasp. Another roar of thunder shook the chalet, and even as it did so, the end came. Melville, twisted backwards by his uncle's weight, felt the pistol that he always carried hurt his side. Mad with passion he freed one hand somehow and struggled half an arm's length from the elder man. Before the thunder had fairly died away there was a barking report, a film of smoke rose between the swaying figures, and Sir Geoffrey threw up his arms and dropped. A smell of singed cloth seemed to fill the room, and on the white front of the old man's flannel shirt there was a burnt stain. Sir Geoffrey Holt was dead—shot at close quarters through the heart.
As Sir Geoffrey fell a sharp scream rang outside, and Melville, with wildly beating heart, looked across the room to the window through which he had caught sight of his uncle. A woman was clinging to one of the iron pillars that supported the verandah, and in the half-fainting form Melville recognised Lavender Sinclair.