Scott's face was pale as death, and there was that in his eyes that could not be ignored. Eustace answered it on the instant, briefly, with a restraint that obviously cost him an effort. "It's all right, Dinah is a bit upset this evening. But she will be all right directly if we leave her alone."
Scott did not so much as pause. "Let me pass!" he said.
His voice was perfectly quiet, but the command of it was such that Eustace, taken unawares, gave ground as it were instinctively. But the next moment impulsively he caught Scott's arm.
"I say,—Stumpy!" An odd embarrassment possessed him; he shook it off half-angrily. "You needn't go making mistakes—jumping to idiotic conclusions. I'm not cutting you out this time."
Scott looked at him. His light eyes held contempt. "Oh, I know that," he said, and there was in his slow voice a note of bitter humour that cut like a whip. "You are never in earnest. You were always the sort to make sport for yourself out of suffering, and then to toss the dregs of your amusement to those who are not—sportsmen."
Eustace was as white as he was himself. He held him in a grip of iron. "What the—devil do you mean?" he said, his voice husky with the strong effort he made to control it.
The younger brother was absolutely controlled, but his eyes shone like a dazzling white flame. "Ask yourself that question!" he said, and his words, though low, had a burning quality, almost as if some force apart from the man himself inspired them. "You know the answer as well as I do. You have studied the damnable game so long, offered so many victims upon the altar of your accursed sport. There is nothing to prevent your going on with it. You will go on no doubt till you tire of the chase. And then your turn will come. You will find yourself alone among the ruins, and you will pay the price. You may repent then—but repentance sometimes comes too late."
He was gone with the words, gone as if an inner force compelled, shaking off the hand that had detained him, and passing scatheless within.
He went up the stairs as calmly as if he had entered the house without interruption. Someone was sobbing piteously behind a closed door, but he did not turn in that direction. He moved straight to the door of Isabel's room, as if a voice had called him.
And on the threshold Biddy met him, her black eyes darkly mysterious, her wrinkled face drawn with awe rather than grief.