“How dare you make these vile insinuations in my hearing?” burst forth Noel.  “Do you think I’m made of sawdust?  Tell me what you mean, or else retract every single word you’ve said!”

Hunt-Goring held up a cigarette between his fingers and looked at it.  The fury of Noel’s attitude scarcely seemed to reach his notice.  He leaned against the balustrade of the verandah, still faintly smiling.

“I would tell you the whole story with pleasure,” he said, “only I am not quite sure that it would be good for you to know.”

“Oh, damn all that!” broke in Noel, goaded to exasperation by his obvious indifference.  “If you want to save your skin, you’d better speak out at once!”

“To save my skin!” Hunt-Goring’s eyes left their contemplation of the cigarette and travelled to his face.  They held a sneer that was well-nigh intolerable, and yet which somehow restrained Noel for the moment.  “What a very headlong young man you are!” pursued Hunt-Goring, in his soft voice.  “I’ve done nothing to you.  I haven’t the smallest desire to quarrel with you.  Nor have I given you any occasion for offence.  It was Mrs. Musgrave—­not I—­who imparted the regrettable tale of your brother’s shortcomings to his fiancee.  In some fashion she conceived it to be her duty to do so.”

“You meant her to do it!” flashed back Noel.

“Ah! that is another story,” smiled Hunt-Goring.  “We are not discussing motives or intentions.  I think.  But she will tell you—­if you care to ask her—­that I advised her strongly against the course she elected to pursue.”

“You would!” said Noel bitterly.  “Well, get on!  Let’s hear this precious story.  I’ve no doubt it’s a damned lie from beginning to end, but if it’s going the round I’d better know it.”

“It may be a lie,” said Hunt-Goring diplomatically.  “But it was not concocted by me.  I should conclude, however, from subsequent events that some portion of it bears at least some sort of resemblance to the truth.”  He stopped to light his cigarette while Noel looked on fuming.  “The story is a very ordinary one, but might well prove somewhat damning to a doctor’s career.  It concerned a young lady with whom your brother was—­somewhat intimate.”

“Did you know her?” thrust in Noel.

Hunt-Goring looked at the end of his cigarette with a thoughtful smile.  “Yes, I knew her rather well.  I was not, however, prepared to lend my name to cloak a scandal—­even to oblige your brother who had transferred his attentions to Miss Olga, so he had to take his own measures.”  He looked up with a glitter of malice in his eyes.  “The girl died,” he said, “rather suddenly.  That’s all the story.”

It was received in a dead silence that lasted for the breathless passage of a dozen seconds.  Then:  “You—­skunk!” said Noel.

He did not raise his voice to say it, but there was that in his tone that was more emphatic than violence.  It warned Hunt-Goring of danger as surely as the growl of a tiger.  His lazy complacence suddenly gave place to alertness.  He straightened himself up.  But even then he had not the sense to refrain from his abominable laugh.