“You add insult to the most awful injury one man can inflict upon another——”
“Stop!” O’Hagan’s big eyes blazed. He took a step forward. “Stop! By God, sir, if you presume to cast such an innuendo in my face I will break your neck, though I hang for it!”
There was a species of subdued ferocity in his manner that had forced conviction upon anyone. No man born of woman could have doubted him.
“You slander me. It is no excuse that you do so, thinking I am he who died on the Yukon border last March.”
A puzzled expression mingled and conflicted with the others which flitted across Dillon’s face.
“Since Sheila Cavanagh and I met at Dunnamore Castle—a childish meeting which your wife had forgotten—we never had set eyes upon each other until that day in St. James’s Park. Despite the passage of years, I knew her again. How dare you—I repeat, sir, how dare you presume to deny me the privilege of your wife’s friendship!”
Dillon’s expression changed again—to one of bewilderment.
“Then,” he gasped, “you are not——”
O’Hagan raised his head.
“Let him rest in peace,” he said sternly. “He was an honourable man, unfortunate in love. You wrong him villainously. If she had cared for him he would be alive to-day. It was something very like suicide—and therefore I charge you, Brian Dillon, never to breathe a word of his unhappy end, never to speak his name to your wife.”