Twice that day he had heard this challenge. Once uttered in all unconsciousness of its significance, but now with hideous meaning. His powers of self-restraint were great, but he had reached their limit. This man had accused him of a dastardly murder. Suddenly his voice rang out through the room like the bellow of a maddened bull. His great figure quivered with the fury of his passion. Hervey had done his worst; now he shrank before the storm he had provoked.
“Out of my house, you scum!” Iredale roared.
“God! but if you stay here an instant longer, I’ll smash you as I would a louse.”
The rancher stood panting at the door. His flashing eyes never left the face of the man before him. Hervey moved; he hesitated. The grin had left his face and a look of dread had replaced it. Then he moved on, forgetful of all but his moral and physical fear of the commanding figure of enraged manhood that seemed to tower over him. He even forgot the weapon which lay concealed in his pocket. He slunk on out of the door amidst a profound silence, out into the soft twilight of the valley.
The door stood open; the window stood open. Iredale looked after him. He watched the tall, drooping figure; then, as Hervey passed from view, Iredale turned back and flung himself into his chair, and his laugh sounded through the stillness of the room.
But there was no mirth in that laugh. It was like the hysterical laugh of a man whose nerves are strained to breaking tension.
He knew he had made a terrible mistake. His rage had placed a deadly weapon in his enemy’s hands. He had practically admitted his authorship of the notice in the Winnipeg paper. What would be the result? he asked himself. Again that strained laugh sounded through the room.
As Hervey rode away from the valley his fear of George Iredale fell from him as might a cloak. His face wore full expression of the evil in his heart.
He, too, laughed; but his laugh was an expression of triumph.