CHAPTER XV.
BARNCASTLE CONFIDES IN HOPKINS.
Toppleton had not long to wait. His nerves had hardly resumed their normal condition when he heard a tottering step in the hall outside, followed by a soft tapping at the door.
"Who's there?" he cried.
"It is I, Toppleton—Barncastle. Let me in and be quick. I have something very important to say to you."
Hopkins ran to the door and opened it, and Barncastle entered, his face pale and his general aspect that of a man who had passed through a terrible ordeal.
"By Jove! I've landed my man!" said Toppleton to himself. Then he added aloud, "My dear Barncastle, you don't know what a turn you gave me downstairs. I sincerely hope you are not ill?"
"I am ill, Toppleton; ill almost unto death, and it is you who have made me so."
"I?" cried Hopkins, with well-feigned surprise. "I don't quite catch your drift."
"Your accursed faculty for reading character in the face, and searching out the soul of man in the depths of his eyes has made you the only man I have ever feared. We must come to some understanding in this matter. I want to know what your object is in coming here to expose me before my friends, to lay bare—"