He was disturbed by a sort of presentiment, an uneasy feeling of something coming, for which he could find no cause.
‘No, I have brought no message. I come to you,’ said Brown, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and his head supported by his hands, ‘on my own account.’
Mr. Germaine uttered a strange cry.
‘Good heavens!’ he said, ‘it was you!’
‘Last night?’ said Brown, looking up at him with his deep-set eyes. ‘Didn’t you know?’
Mr. Germaine could not contain himself. He got up and pushed back his chair. He looked for a moment, being a tall man also and strong, though not so strong as the Hercules before him, as if he would have seized upon him and shaken him, as one dog does another.
‘You!’ he cried. ‘The creature of her bounty! For whom she has done everything! Obliged to her for all you are and all you have!’
Brown laughed a low, satirical laugh. ‘I am her husband,’ he said.
The Vicar stood with rage in his face, gazing at this man, feeling that he could have torn him limb from limb.
‘How dared you?’ he said, through his clenched teeth; ‘how dared you? I should like to kill you. You to sit there and let her appeal to you, and let her open to me and close the door, and do a servant’s office, while you were there!’