nown that
he used a thing marked with a triangle--a Red Triangle--by the use of
which he could bend men to his will!"

Hewitt was listening intently, with no sign of laughter at all,
notwithstanding his client's apprehension. And I remembered the case of
Mr. Jacob Mason, and how that victim had so fervently expressed his wish
to the excellent clergyman, Mr. Potswood, that he had never dabbled in
the strange devilries of Myatt--or Mayes, as we were now learning to
call him.

"At any rate," Peytral resumed, "you will understand that the
conjunction of the tourniquet with the Red Triangle in the two cases you
know of caused me some excitement. My daughter, as you have said,
noticed a change in my habits from that time; my wife did more--she knew
the reason. Mr. Hewitt, I am an older man, but there is hotter blood in
my veins than in yours. My father was English--though you might scarcely
suppose it--but my mother, to whose name I have reverted, was a French
Creole. So perhaps my natural instincts come nearer to those of our
savage ancestry than do yours. Whether or not you will understand me I
do not know, but I can tell you that even now, in cold blood--for my
paroxysm has exhausted itself and me--it seems to me that it would be my
duty, not to say my sacred duty, to tear that man to pieces with my
hands whenever and wherever I could put them on him! My old passions may
have slept, I find, but they are alive still, and I found them waking
when I realised that Mayes was alive and in England. The words 'sane'
and 'insane' are elastic in their application, but I doubt if you would
have called me strictly sane of late. I evolved mad schemes for the
destruction of this wretch, and I was ready to devote myself and
everything I possessed to the purpose. More than once I contemplated
coming to you--seeing that you had met the man in one of his
villainies--with the idea of enlisting your aid. But I reflected that
you would probably make yourself no party to a plan of private revenge,
and I hesitated. And then--then, a little more than a week ago, I saw
the man himself! Changed, without doubt, but not half as much changed as
I am myself. Nevertheless, sure as I am of him now, I hesitated then.
For it was here in the meadow that you know, near the barn, and the
thing seemed so likely to be illusion that I almost suspected my senses.
It was dusk, and he was walking and talking with another man, a good
deal younger. And presently, w