Bridgminster laughed again, and for fully a minute the two men looked deep into each other’s eyes, unaware, perhaps, of all they revealed.
The older brother, his thick upper lip almost flattened in a leer, spoke first: “Do you wish I were dead?”
“How can you say such a thing?”
The formula, with which he so long had been wont lightly to extricate himself from corners, sprang from his lips. He turned on his heel and walked the length of the room. It was a very long room, and when he stood before his brother once more, the flutter in his nerves had subsided. Again the eyes met and held each other, until Ordham said distinctly:
“I do.”
He had expected that Bridgminster would laugh again, and it had crossed his mind that if he did the port bottle might fly at his face. But to his astonishment his brother cowered in his chair, his purple face paling, and put out his hands with feebly warding motions.
“Don’t say that!” He stammered and his tongue was thick. “I—I fancy I am superstitious. I’m a bit off my feed—worse than ever to-day. It’s this damned haunted barrack. I’ll go back to Scotland to-morrow.”
Ordham moved a step closer. Transfixing the wretched man with his cold contracted eyes, he made no reply. Bridgminster stirred uncontrollably. “It is a big sum,” he muttered.
Still Ordham made no reply, but his eyes were little more than glittering lines. Bridgminster’s chest heaved, a flash leaped into his injected eyes.
“I believe you’d kill me if you got a chance—if you thought you wouldn’t be found out.”