He flung himself back in his chair again, and watched the younger man with brooding eye. Mr. Caryll was plainly moved. He had paled a little, and he sat now with brows contracted and set teeth.
Sir Richard pushed back his chair and rose, recapitulating. “He is your mother's destroyer,” he said, with a sad sternness. “Is the ruin of that fair life to go unpunished? Is it, Justin?”
Mr. Caryll's Gallic spirit burst abruptly through its British glaze. He crushed fist into palm, and swore: “No, by God! It shall not, Sir Richard!”
Sir Richard held out his hands, and there was a fierce joy in his gloomy eyes at last. “You'll cross to England with me, Justin?”
But Mr. Caryll's soul fell once more into travail. “Wait!” he cried. “Ah, wait!” His level glance met Sir Richard's in earnestness and entreaty. “Answer me the truth upon your soul and conscience: Do you in your heart believe that it is what my mother would have had me do?”
There was an instant's pause. Then Everard, the fanatic of vengeance, the man whose mind upon that one subject was become unsound with excess of brooding, answered with conviction: “As I have a soul to be saved, Justin, I do believe it. More—I know it. Here!” Trembling hands took up the old letter from the table and proffered it to Justin. “Here is her own message to you. Read it again.”
And what time the young man's eyes rested upon that fine, pointed writing, Sir Richard recited aloud the words he knew by heart, the words that had been ringing in his ears since that day when he had seen her lowered to rest: “'Never let him learn that Justin exists unless it be to punish him by the knowledge for his cruel desertion of me.' It is your mother's voice speaking to you from the grave,” the fanatic pursued, and so infected Justin at last with something of his fanaticism.
The green eyes flashed uncannily, the white young face grew cruelly sardonic. “You believe it?” he asked, and the eagerness that now invested his voice showed how it really was with him.
“As I have a soul to be saved,” Sir Richard repeated.
“Then gladly will I set my hand to it.” Fire stirred through Justin now, a fire of righteous passion. “An idea—no more than an idea—daunted me. You have shown me that. I cross to England with you, Sir Richard, and let my Lord Ostermore look to himself, for my name—I who have no right to any name—my name is judgment!”