"I'll not deny or anything else till I know what right——"
"I know it comes late, but I've spoken of it before."
"Yes—sneaking behind my back!" he said hotly, probably again remembering his recent conversation with Miss Angela.
"To your face."
"Yes—and if it hadn't been for something else I should have told you then what an interfering devil you were!"
"Merridew," I said slowly, "it's the last time."
He sneered.
"I'm glad of that—and confound you for a meddler!" he cried. "If that's all you came for, get out, and I'll get somebody else to look after my trunk!"
We were silent for a space, and in that space I heard the voice of that human Jeffries, almost pitifully seeking still to save him. "Give him every chance," sobbed that Jeffries, "he's only a weakling—you could crush him mentally as you could physically—it would be little better than infanticide—try him again—show him that red thing on the floor—and that carved thing on the door."
But now Archie in his turn seemed to have become divided. He had suddenly turned white. But an habitual pertness still persisted in his tongue. I don't think this had any relation whatever to the physical peril he seemed at last to have realised he was in. I stood over him huge and black as Fate.... "Spare him if you can," that generous bloodthirsty devil in me muttered quickly.