He felt his skin roughening, bristling like a dog's; he was conscious
of being cold from head to foot, as if the flow of his blood had
been suddenly arrested; and a sense of sickness overcame him. And
then to turn that horrible doubt of his into still more horrible
certainty came a man's voice, subdued, yet not so subdued but that
he recognised it for Ned Tremayne's.
"There's some one lying there. I can make out the figure."
"Don't go down! For pity's sake, come back. Come back and wait,
Ned. If any one should come and find you we shall be ruined."
Thus hoarsely whispering, vibrating with terror, the voice of his
wife reached O'Moy, to confirm him the unsuspecting blind cuckold
that Samoval had dubbed him to his face, for which Samoval - warning
the guilty pair with his last breath even as he had earlier so
mockingly warned Sir Terence - had coughed up his soul on the turf
of that enclosed garden.
Crouching there for a moment longer, a man bereft of movement and
of reason, stood O'Moy, conscious only of pain, in an agony of mind
and heart that at one and the same time froze his blood and drew
the sweat from his brow.
Then he was for stepping out into the open, and, giving flow to the
rage and surging violence that followed, calling down the man who
had dishonoured him and slaying him there under the eyes of that
trull who had brought him to this shame.
Pages:
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219