“Mad!” he said to himself. “Stark mad, by jingo!”
Mr. Bashwood looked at his watch, and hurriedly took his hat from a side-table.
“I should like to hear the rest of it,” he said. “I should like to hear every word you have to tell me about her, to the very last. But the time, the dreadful, galloping time, is getting on. For all I know, they may be on their way to be married at this very moment.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Bashwood the younger, getting between his father and the door.
“I am going to the hotel,” said the old man, trying to pass him. “I am going to see Mr. Armadale.”
“What for?”
“To tell him everything you have told me.” He paused after making that reply. The terrible smile of triumph which had once already appeared on his face overspread it again. “Mr. Armadale is young; Mr. Armadale has all his life before him,” he whispered, cunningly, with his trembling fingers clutching his son’s arm. “What doesn’t frighten me will frighten him!”
“Wait a minute,” said Bashwood the younger. “Are you as certain as ever that Mr. Armadale is the man?”
“What man?”
“The man who is going to marry her.”