"What's happened now?"
Price had closed the door and backing up, leaned against it. His answer came, hoarse and broken:
"I've been to those hounds, the Whitneys."
It illuminated the ignorance of his listener, who was readjusting his mind for a reply when the other burst into a storm of invective against the lawyers and the Janneys. It broke like a released torrent, sentences stumbling on one another, curses mingled with wild accusations, its cause revealed in a final cry of: "Stolen—my child—kidnaped—gone!"
Through Ferguson's head, full of weightier matters, flashed a vision of Chapman raging at the Whitneys and a wonder as to what effect his rage had had. Kicking a chair forward he spoke with a dry quietness:
"That's all right—you needn't bother to go over it. Pull yourself together and sit down."
But he might as well have counseled self-control to an angry lion. The man, still standing against the door, jerked out:
"I can get nothing from any of them. They know nothing. They've let all this time pass—following me, suspecting me. I don't know why I didn't kill them!"
"Probably because you've sense enough left not to complicate what's complicated enough already. What brought you here?"
He seemed unable to answer any direct question, staring with dilated eyes, his thoughts fastened on the subject of his pain: