Suddenly Jack, pale with anger, started with a sudden impulse towards him, crying:
“You have spied upon me and endeavoured unsuccessfully to give me into the hands of the police. Well, it is a fight between us. Were it not for the fact I am a guest in a friend’s house I would horsewhip you as a cad and a coward. As it is, you shall go free. I shall, however, be armed against you; these revelations by my friend Ridgeway have proved what I long ago suspected, and—”
“This friend of yours, who desires to claim acquaintance with me, lies!” he said with calm indifference.
“Go! Tell the Countess, whose lover you may be for aught I know, that the man she suspects is innocent, and that if necessary he will prove it,” Bethune answered bitterly.
“I knew you were innocent, Jack!” I cried. “Prove it, old fellow! Don’t delay a moment.”
He turned quickly, and asked me frigidly: “Then you also suspect me—of what?”
I saw that my involuntary exclamations had again betrayed my suspicions. Ere I could reply, Markwick, who had flung himself into an armchair and was sitting in an indolent attitude with legs outstretched, had cried:
“Innocent—bah!”
“What crime then do you allege?” Jack demanded. His face blanched as he strode up to his strange visitor with clenched fists.