He was mad, if ever man was mad, at that moment. But his words were strong with the force and clear with the insight of his passion; and the rush of them carried my mind along, and swept it with them to their own conclusion. Nay, I will not say that—for I doubted still; but I doubted as a man who would deny, not as one who laughs away, a thought. I sat silent, looking, not at him, but at the Cardinal’s Necklace on the floor.
Then, suddenly, while I was still busy with the thought and dazzled at the revelation, while I sat bemused, before I could move, his fingers were on my throat, and his face within a foot of mine, glaring and working as he sent his strength into his arms to throttle me. For his wife—and his name—he would fight a duel: for the sake of Marie Delhasse he would do murder on an invited stranger in his house. I struggled to my feet, his grip on my throat; and I stretched out my hands and caught him under the shoulders in the armpits, and flung him back against the table, and thence he reeled on to a large cabinet that was by the wall, and Stood leaning against it.
“I knew you were a villain,” I said, “but I thought you were a gentleman.” (I did not stop to consider the theory implied in that.)
He leaned against the cabinet, red with his exertion and panting; but he did not come at me again. He dashed his hand across his forehead and then he said in hoarse breathless tones:
“You shan’t leave here alive!”
Then, with a start of recollection, he thrust
