The man outside the window breathed again. The play, to all intents and purposes, was finished. Roddick had won, and there was only that twitching of the mouth to show how much it had cost him.
Griff Lomax awoke to a sense of his own importance in the drama. He remembered that a certain disreputable waif-and-stray, with a shipwrecked heart and a partially deranged understanding, held the key of the situation. He went to the door, opened it without ceremony, and stepped into the room.
Roddick turned quickly on the intruder. Janet cowered back against the window.
"What do you want?" demanded Roddick. The room was low and gloomy, and he failed to recognize Griff at a first glance.
"Don't you know me? I'm Lomax," laughed the new-comer.
Roddick stood staring at him for awhile; then went up to him.
"God in Heaven, man! what have you been doing? Last night you looked wild enough in all conscience, but now——"
"Doing?" interrupted Griff. "Something you will approve of, you two. I've tramped across the moor—and a pretty cold moor it is, by the way—to tell you that your wife is dead."
They noticed nothing out of the way in his voice or manner of giving the information. The tidings were too great to allow room for any thought of the bearer's looks.
"Dead?" cried Roddick.