r the hour the duller villain, the man who was wont to take
orders and to refrain from overmuch thought or question, seemed to have
become master. Sheer physical exhaustion and the constant maddening pain
had had their will of Captain Stewart. A sudden shiver wrung him so that
his dry fingers rattled against the wood of the chair-arms.

"All the same," he cried, "I'm afraid. I've been confident enough until
now. Now I'm afraid. I wish the fellow had been killed."

"Kill him, then!" laughed the Irishman. "I won't give you up to the
police."

He crossed the room to the door, but halted short of it and turned about
again, and he looked back very curiously at the man who sat crouched in
his chair by the window. It had occurred to him several times that
Stewart was very unlike himself. The man was quite evidently tired and
ill, and that might account for some of the nervousness, but this fierce
malignity was something a little beyond O'Hara's comprehension. It
seemed to him that the elder man had the air of one frightened beyond
the point the circumstances warranted.

"Are you going back to town," he asked, "or do you mean to stay the
night?"

"I shall stay the night," Stewart said. "I'm too tired to bear the
ride." He glanced up and caught the other's eyes fixed upon him. "Well!"
he cried, angrily. "What is it? What are you looking at me like that
for? What do you want?"

"I want nothing," said the Irishman, a little sharply. "And I wasn't
aware that I'd been looking at you in any unusual way. You're precious
jumpy to-day, if you want to know.... Look here!" He came back a step,
frowning. "Look here!" he repeated. "I don't quite make you out. Are you
keeping back anything? Because if you are, for Heaven's sake have it out
here and now! We're all in this game together, and we can't afford to be
anything but frank with one another. We can't afford to make
reservations. It's altogether too dangerous for everybody. You're too
much frightened. There's no apparent reason for being so frightened as
that."

Captain Stewart drew a long breath between closed teeth, and afterward
he looked up at the younger man coldly.

"We need not discuss my personal feelings, I think," said he. "They have
no--no bearing on the point at issue. As you say, we are all in this
thing together, and you need not fear that I shall fail to do my part,
as I have done it in the past.... That's all, I believe."

"Oh, _as_ you like! As you like!" sai