Zeal, who was sitting stiffly forward, his hands gripping the arms of his chair, laughed dryly. "You will be the chief sufferer. The others don't count."
"Has my grandfather speculated once too often? Are we gone completely smash?" Gwynne was rapidly assuring himself that he was now prepared for the worst, that nothing should knock the props from under him again, that it was the sight of Zeal's face that had upset him; he was not one to collapse before the stiff blows of life.
"It is likely. Anyhow, if he lives long enough he'll make a mess of what is left." He raised his head slowly, and once more Gwynne, as he met those terrible haunted eyes, felt as Adam may have felt when he was being bundled towards the exit of Eden. He braced himself unconsciously, and after Zeal's next words did not relax his body, although his lips turned white and stiff.
"I am going to kill myself some time to-day," said Zeal, in a voice so emotionless that Gwynne wondered idly if all his capacity for expression had gone to his eyes. "I should have done it several hours earlier, but I felt that I owed you an explanation. You can pass it on to my grandfather when the time comes."
He paused a moment, and then he too seemed to brace himself.
"I killed Brathland," he said.
Gwynne moistened his lips. "Poor old Zeal," he muttered. "It must be a horrid sensation—"
"To be a murderer? I can assure you it is."
Gwynne's mind seemed to darken until only one luminous point confronted it, the visible tormented soul of his kinsman. He walked over to the table and mixed two tumblers of whiskey-and-soda, wondering why he had not thought of it before. They drank without haste, and then Gwynne took the chair opposite Zeal's.
"Tell me all about it," he said.