“The very next day Lewis Dalton came into the mill and told me that Lakeland was inquiring for me down in town. ‘And he’s sober today,’ he added. What better could I ask? I shoved a wrench into my pocket—that would be easily enough explained—and started immediately to town. I met him just as I turned the corner on to Main Street. There were several people in sight, but none within a hundred feet of us.”
Stowe’s expression had been gradually changing ever since he had begun his story. Now he was completely transformed. He leaned far over the table toward me, every muscle tense, his eyes snapping with a steely glint that made me shudder to see. I took another drink of wine, but, for the first time, he seemed to forget his completely. His lips drew in a thin, straight, colorless line as he hissed with diabolic vehemence:
“I held out my hand to him civilly enough, but spoke before he took it. I didn’t call him Lakeland that time either, I called him by his right name, the name he’s deserved ever since this world has been cursed with his damned green eyed face. His hand went straight into his coat under his arm, but I was ready for him. I grabbed his wrist and shoved him back against the wall. As soon as he saw the wrench in my other hand he realized that I was going to kill him, and the dammed coward got so weak in the legs that he didn’t even try to get away. He groaned like a calf when I hit him right over the temple. But his eyes; they still had enough of the devil in them to look at me even while he was falling, and say: ‘You’re not ahead yet, even with this.’”
He reached again for the green bottle and I offered no protest. Although he had already had enough for two men, anything would be better than his present condition.
“I didn’t even know that she was sick when I killed him,” he continued. “When they told me, I went straight to the house. She was dying—dying, and that brute was down in town just walking around the streets while she was calling for him and begging him to come to her! She recognized me as soon as I got into the room and seemed to know all.
“‘Where is Jim?’ she begged me to tell her.
“I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t.
“‘Will I have to go to him?’ she cried; and she never spoke again, and never took her eyes from mine. She is still looking straight into my eyes. And since she died,” he groaned, “her eyes have gotten as green as his.”
“Then why, in the name of Heaven, have you made everything in the house green?” I asked, reminded once more of our hideous surroundings.