He suddenly grabbed the candle and, holding it close to the letter, began to read. His hands were perfectly steady, showing the tremendous nerve tension under which he laboured. Then his expression changed, but nothing of the maniac glare left his eyes.
“From your mother,” he said hoarsely, “and full of two things—your wrongs, your wrongs! and Jack Harringay—Jack Harringay—always Jack Harringay! Damn him!”
He put down the candle and began to tear the letter into tiny fragments, pouring forth the while a stream of coarse, blasphemous language. Moreen, who felt that consciousness was slipping from her, crouched there with a face deathly pale.
Fayne began to laugh softly as he threw the torn-up letter from him piece by piece.
“Damn him!” he said again. He turned the blazing eyes towards his wife. “You lying, baby-faced hypocrite! Why don’t you admit that he is——”
He stopped; the sinister laughter died upon his lips and he stood there shaking all over and with a sort of stark horror in his eyes dreadful to see.
“Why don’t you?” he muttered—and looked at her almost pathetically,—“why of course you can’t—no one can——”
He reeled and clutched at the tent-flap, then stumblingly made his way out.
“No one can,” came back in a shaky whisper—“no one can——”