The exaltation of his anger gave him fresh strength and new confidence in himself and he tore the letter into bits and ground them beneath his heel as he shouted:
“This is what will happen to you! It’s what you deserve and what you’ll get, you damned thief!”
CHAPTER XV
Felix Brand Has a Bad Quarter of
an Hour
It was evident to Dr. Annister that Felix Brand was having a bad quarter of an hour. But the little physician, sitting upright in his capacious chair, his elbows on its arms and his finger-tips resting against one another, could not find it in his heart to abate in the least the penetrating gaze of his gray eyes or the gentle insistence of his questions. For the longer their talk continued the more he became convinced that the man before him was not speaking the truth and the more he felt it necessary, for his daughter’s sake, to find out what was the truth.
“I am sorry to have to tell you, Felix,” said Dr. Annister, in the beginning of their conversation, “that I am unable to feel entire confidence in your explanation of your long and mysterious absence.”
The architect hesitated for a bare instant before he turned to reply. The other noted that he had to stop to think, that neither movement nor answer was spontaneous.
“Do you mean me to understand, Dr. Annister,” he said courteously, “that you think I am lying?”