The words came from the sick man’s lips explosively. He rose from his seat, and gripped Rayner’s shoulder in a way that made him grimace with pain.
“Man,” he cried, “are you telling me the truth?”
“Certainly, sir! Why——”
“Do you know who I am?”
Bracknell’s eyes, full of wild light, glared down into Rayner’s but the latter, as he lied, met them unflinchingly.
“I do not, sir! We have not exchanged——”
“My name is Bracknell—Dick Bracknell; and I can guess it is my wife and my cousin of whom you have been talking. By—— if I had him here. And to think that two days ago he was here, and that I let him go.”
“He was here two days ago?”
“Two days ago—and I let him go because he pitched a cock and bull story which I believed! And I might have known all the time that it was so much bunkum, just a yarn to get out of my hands. I ought to have killed him as he tried to kill me by poisoning my dogs. I remember now that once before when we met, he showed a tenderness for Joy that was more than natural in a mere cousin by marriage. He suggested to me that I should make reparations to my wife by allowing her to divorce me!”
“That was a very crafty suggestion on his part!” broke in Rayner suavely. “It would have cleared his own way to your wife!”