Elsie looked at me with a peculiar air of distrust. Her woman’s instinct told her that there was something wrong. Before she could question me, however, I had left the room and was walking rapidly on Hammond Brake’s track.
He heard the footsteps, and I saw his figure, black against the sky, stop and peer back through the dusk to see who was following him.
“It is I, Brake,” I called out. “Stop; I wish to speak with you.”
He stopped, and in a minute or so we were walking side by side along the road. My fingers itched at that moment to be on his throat. I commenced the conversation.
“Brake,” I said, “I’m a very plain sort of man, and I never say anything without good reason. What I came after you to tell you is, that I don’t wish you to come to my house any more, or to speak with Elsie any farther than the ordinary salutations go. It’s no joke. I’m quite in earnest.”
Brake started, and, stopping short, faced me suddenly in the road. “What have I done?” he asked. “You surely are too sensible a man to be jealous, Dayton.”
“Oh,” I answered scornfully, “not jealous in the ordinary sense of the word, a bit. But I don’t think your company good company for my wife, Brake. If you WILL have it out of me, I suspect you of being a Roman Catholic, and of trying to convert my wife.”
A smile shot across his face, and I saw his sharp white teeth gleam for an instant in the dusk.
“Well, what if I am a Papist?” he said, with a strange tone of triumph in his voice. “The faith is not criminal. Besides, what proof have you that I was attempting to proselyte your wife?”
“This,” said I, pulling the leaf from my pocket—“this leaf from one of those devilish Papist books you and she were reading this evening. I picked it up from the floor. Proof enough, I think!”