"Well then go—and be damned to you!" he said fiercely. "And blame your drunken wits if you come to grief. I've done my best to dissuade you. If you were less drunk I'd square the thing up and fight you. But I'm on, all right. Fifty pounds that you don't get back here—though I'm decent enough to hope I'll have to pay it. That satisfy you?"
"All right." Wynne straightened himself, took an unsteady step forward toward the door, and it was then that they all realized how exceedingly drunk the man was. He had come to the dinner in a state of partial intoxication, which merely made him bad-tempered, but now the spirits that he had partaken of so plentifully was burning itself into his very brain.
Doctor Bartholomew took a step toward him.
"Dash it all!" he said under his breath and addressing no one in particular, "he can't go like that. Can't some of us stop him?"
"Try," put in Lester Stark sententiously, having had previous experiences of Wynne's mood, so Doctor Bartholomew did try, and got cursed for his pains. Wynne was struggling into his great, picturesque cloak, a sinister figure of unsteady gait and blood-shot eye. As he went to the hall and swung open the front door, Merriton made one last effort to stop him.
"Don't be a fool, Wynne," he said anxiously. "The game's not worth the candle. Stay where you are and I'll put you up for the night, but in Heaven's name don't venture out across the Fens now."
Wynne turned and showed him a reddened, congested face from which the eyes gleamed evilly. Merriton never forgot that picture of him, or the sudden tightening of the heart-strings that he experienced, the sudden sensation of foreboding that swept over him.
"Oh—go to hell!" Wynne said thickly. And plunged out into the darkness.