“I do.”
“You lie!” blazed Ichabod. “Every word and action of your life gives you the lie!”
Not five minutes had passed since he came in and already he had forgotten!
Asa Arnold likewise was upon his feet and they two faced each other,––a bed length between; in their minds the past and future a blank, the present with its primitive animal hate blazing in their eyes.
“You know what it means to tell me that.” Arnold’s voice was a full note higher than usual. “You’ll apologize?”
“Never. It’s true. You lied, and you know you lied.”
The surrounding world turned dark to the little man, and the dry-goods box with the tin dipper on its top, danced before his eyes. For the first time in his memory he felt himself losing self-control, and by main force of will he turned away to the window. For the instant all the savage of his nature was on the surface, 210 and he could fairly feel his fingers gripping at the tall man’s throat.
A moment he stood in the narrow south window, full in the smiling irony of Nature’s sunshine; but only a moment. Then the mocking smile that had become an instinctive part of his nature spread over his face.
“I see but one way to settle this difficulty,” he intimated.
A taunt sprang to Ichabod’s tongue, but was as quickly repressed.