When she had gone, Soolsby, who had been present and had interpreted the old man’s look according to a knowledge all his own, came over to the bed, leaned down and whispered: “I will speak now.”
Then the eyes opened, and a smile faintly flickered at the mouth.
“I will speak now,” Soolsby said again into the old man’s ear.
CHAPTER XXV. THE VOICE THROUGH THE DOOR
That night Soolsby tapped at the door of the lighted laboratory of the Cloistered House where Lord Eglington was at work; opened it, peered in, and stepped inside.
With a glass retort in his hand Eglington faced him. “What’s this—what do you want?” he demanded.
“I want to try an experiment,” answered Soolsby grimly.
“Ah, a scientific turn!” rejoined Eglington coolly—looking at him narrowly, however. He was conscious of danger of some kind.
Then for a minute neither spoke. Now that Soolsby had come to the moment for which he had waited for so many years, the situation was not what he had so often prefigured. The words he had chosen long ago were gone from his memory; in his ignorance of what had been a commonplace to Soolsby’s dark reflection so long, the man he had meant to bring low stood up before him on his own ground, powerful and unabashed.