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By the way, Sir Charles, where is your man?" "I would ask YOU that question, Sir Lothian," answered my uncle. "Where is my man?" A look of astonishment passed over Sir Lothian's features, which, if it were not real, was most admirably affected. "What do you mean by asking me such a question?" "Because I wish to know." "But how can I tell, and what business is it of mine?"
"Sir," answered my uncle, "you are a liar, but how great a liar you are nobody knows save yourself." Sir Lothian's hollow cheeks grew white with passion, and I saw for an instant in his deep-set eyes such a glare as comes from the frenzied hound rearing and ramping at the end of its chain. Then, with an effort, he became the same cold, hard, self-contained man as ever.
The two men's faces were not more than a few inches apart, and Sir Lothian's bold eyes had to sink before the imperious scorn which gleamed coldly in those of my uncle. "We will settle our accounts, never fear, though I degrade myself in meeting such a blackleg. What is it, Craven?" "We shall have to declare a draw, Tregellis." "My man has the fight in hand." "I cannot help it.
The morning of the inquiry came round, and at about ten o'clock Jimmy Macfarlane opened the door of my place of confinement and beckoned me to follow him. He conducted me through a long passage into a large room adjoining the prison house. It was a comfortable apartment, with a bright peat fire burning on the hearth, before which Colin Lothian's dog lay sound asleep.
"I won't have you use that word, Sir Lothian," cried my uncle, sharply. "You were there as I was. You know that he was a murderer." "I tell you that you shall not say so." Sir Lothian's fierce little grey eyes had to lower themselves before the imperious anger which shone in my uncle's.
An ugly sneer came over Sir Lothian's saturnine face. "I see," said he. "Your man has not come on quite as well as you had expected in his training, and you are hard put to it to invent an excuse. Still, I should have thought that you might have found a more probable one, and one which would entail less serious consequences."
He was married to the second daughter of Sir James Ovington; and as I have seen three of his grandchildren within the week, I fancy that if any of Sir Lothian's descendants have their eye upon the property, they are likely to be as disappointed as their ancestor was before them.
"I know all about it, Mr. Duke." "What! You can tell how it happened? You know who committed the deed?" Lothian's dog here licked her hand. She sent it away, and it wandered about the room until it came to Tom Kinlay. "Yes, I can tell you that," she replied. And then she turned round, pointing with accusing finger at Tom Kinlay, "'Twas him that did it. I saw it all.
See, even the dog kens its own master's blood!" At Kinlay's feet crouched Lothian's dog, snarling angrily as it looked at a stain on the young man's trousers. Consternation filled me as I heard this terrible accusation. Mr. Drever alone of those present seemed unmoved; he alone seemed to have expected it.
I thought of Sir Lothian's murderous repute as a duellist, and I trembled for my uncle. "Now, sir, if you imagine that you have a grievance against me, you will oblige me vastly by putting it into words." "I will," said my uncle. "There has been a conspiracy to maim or kidnap my man, and I have every reason to believe that you are privy to it."
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