The manager turned. Across the room he beheld a pair of glowing eyes fixed upon him. He saw nothing else. They seemed to occupy his entire focus, devouring him with their merciless stare.
"If what you've told me is not true I'll—kill you."
The words were quietly spoken. They were spoken too quietly. They came coldly to the departing man, and like an icy blast they left him shivering. He knew they were meant, not as a mere expression of anger, but literally. He knew that this man would have no scruples, no mercy. No one who had offended need expect mercy from him—not even the wife whom he knew he loved above all things in the world.
"They are true," he returned.
The basilisk eyes passed out of his focus as Hendrie's head bent over the paper before him.
"We shall see."
As the door softly closed behind the manager, Hendrie flung his pen down upon the writing-pad. He sat back in his chair, and his eyes stared in the direction of the closed door.
He sat quite still. His hard face had lost no color, there was not a sign of emotion in it. His cold eyes gazed on a dead level at—nothing. Never was there an exhibition of more perfect outward control of a storming brain within. He was thinking, thinking with the lightning rapidity of the perfect machinery of a powerful brain. He was thinking along lines all wholly unexplored and new to him, and such was his concentrative power that no feelings were permitted to confuse the flow.
His whole future was at stake. His whole life. Everything—everything that mattered.
The time passed rapidly. Still that silent figure sat on. The automobile was brought round, and a servant announced it. It was kept waiting.