Then with an effort he removed his hat, revealing a face on which, despite a pallor of death, was the mocking sneer which one imagines on the face of Satan claiming the forfeit of a soul.
For a moment there was a tense silence. Then through the court-room the shriek of Sheila reechoed in terror:
"Fargus, Max Fargus!"
The sound of a thud followed as she slipped to the bench and pitched loudly on the floor.
"Your Honor," Fargus said, turning to the judge. "All I wanted to do was to establish my identity. That is done."
Bofinger had a moment of vertigo during which he committed two vital mistakes. The first was to remain sillily muttering over and over, "Max Fargus! Max Fargus!"; the second was in allowing his enemy to escape. When a moment later he recovered himself and rushed forth there was not a trace of the misanthrope to be seen, neither in the halls nor on the sidewalk, nor in the white, storm-swept street. A policeman told him that a cab had been waiting into which Fargus had tottered and driven off with a companion who had remained inside, concealing his features.
CHAPTER XIX ROUT AT EVERY POINT
Great dangers, which in the physical world turn the coward at bay into the most dangerous of antagonists, often in the realm of the mind excite a similar phenomenon. Bofinger, before the shock of the revelation, remained but a moment confused and staring. The situation flashed over him,—he divined the conspiracy. Calling hurriedly to the policeman to have his wife sent home, he cleared the sidewalk with a bound and started on the trail of a car, hat in hand, his coat-tails lashing the frosty air. But half-way, meeting a hansom meandering towards him through the storm, he turned with a cry of joy and bounded into it, almost jolting the sleepy driver from his seat.