"Lambton."
"Beyond all chance of mistake?"
"Beyond all chance of mistake, although he has shaved off his whiskers and moustache. Lambton saw him on the railway platform, and recognised him at once. Lambton had no time to make any inquiries, as his train was just about to move when he recognised the villain standing alone. But I have plenty of time for inquiries, and shall not miss one. I'll shoot him as I would a rabid dog."
"The atrocious scoundrel!"
"When I read the letter I only waited to put this in my pocket."
He took out a revolver and laid it on the table.
Then for a while both men sat staring at one another across the table, on which lay the weapon. At length Bramwell rose and began pacing up and down the room with quick, feverish steps. Ray had not seen him so excited for years--not since his own sister Kate, the solitary man's wife, had run away, taking her baby, with that villain John Ainsworth, whom Edward Lambton had seen at Richmond. After the first fierce agony of the wound, the husband had declined to speak of her flight or of her to his brother-in-law. He plunged headlong into gambling for a time until all his ample means were dissipated, unless Boland's Ait are enough to keep body and soul together. Then his grief took another turn. He was lost to all his former friends for months, and at last took up his residence, under an assumed name--Francis Bramwell instead of Frank Mellor--on Boland's Ait, in the South London Canal. To not a living soul did he disclose his real name or his place of habitation but to Philip Ray, the brother of his guilty wife, and the sworn avenger of her shame and his dishonour.
Ray watched Bramwell with flashing, uneasy eyes. By a desperate effort he was calming his own tumultuous passions.
At last Bramwell wound his arms round his head, as though to shut out some intolerable sight, to close his ears to some maddening sounds, to shield his head from deadly, infamous blows.
"Bear with me, Philip!" he cried huskily, at length. "Bear with me, my dear friend. I am half mad--whole mad for the moment. Bear with me! God knows, I have cause to be mad."