In silence Loder brought out the whiskey and set it on the table; then instinctively he turned aside. As plainly as though he saw the action, he mentally figured Chilcote's furtive glance, the furtive movement of his fingers to his waistcoat-pocket, the hasty dropping of the tabloids into the glass. For an instant the sense of his tacit connivance came to him sharply; the next, he flung it from him. The human, inner voice was whispering its old watchword. The strong man has no time to waste over his weaker brother!
When he heard Chilcote lay down his tumbler he looked back again. “Well, what is it?” he said. “What have you come for?” He strove resolutely to keep his voice severe, but, try as he might, he could not quite subdue the eager force that lay behind his words. Once again, as on the night of their second interchange, life had become a phoenix, rising to fresh existence even while he sifted its ashes. “Well?” he said, once again.
Chilcote had set down his glass. He was nervously passing his handkerchief across his lips. There was something in the gesture that attracted Loder. Looking at him more attentively, he saw what his own feelings and the other's conventional dress had blinded him to—the almost piteous panic and excitement in his visitor's eyes.
“Something's gone wrong!” he said, with abrupt intuition.
Chilcote started. “Yes—no—that is, yes,” he stammered.
Loder moved round the table. “Something's gone wrong,” he repeated. “And you've come to tell me.”
The tone unnerved Chilcote; he suddenly dropped into a chair. “It—it wasn't my fault,” he began. “I—I have had a horrible time!”
Loder's lips tightened. “Yes,” he said, “yes—I understand.”
The other glanced up with a gleam of his old suspicion “'Twas all my nerves, Loder—”
“Of course. Yes, of course.” Loder's interruption was curt.