’You would have known the reason had you lived long enough to read the provisions of my will,’ said Hugo.

‘I see,’ said Ravengar.

‘You do,’ said Hugo.  ’You see, you hear, you breathe, but Bentley doesn’t.  Bentley has killed himself.’ (Ravengar started.) ’So that if you have not my blood on your conscience, you have his.  You tempted him; he fell ... and he has repented.  Admit that you tempted him!’

Ravengar smiled superiorly.  And then Hugo sprang forward in a sudden overmastering passion.

‘Hate breeds hate,’ he cried, ’and I have learnt from you how to hate.  Admit that you have tried to ruin and to murder me, or, by G—!  I will kill you sooner than I intended.’

He had no weapon in his hands; the revolver was in a drawer; but nevertheless Ravengar shrank from those menacing hands.

‘Look here, Hugo—­’

‘Will you admit it?  Or shall I have to—­’

Their wills met in a supreme conflict.

‘Oh, very well, then,’ muttered Ravengar.

The conflict was over.

Hugo returned to his chair.

‘Miserable cur!’ he exclaimed.  ’You were afraid of me.  I knew I could frighten you.  I would have liked to be able to admire something more than your ingenuity.  Ravengar, I do believe I could have forgiven your attempt to murder me if it had not included an attempt to dishonour me at the same time.  There is something simple and grand about a straightforward murder—­I shall prove to you soon that I do not always regard murder as a crime—­but to murder a man amid circumstances of shame, to finish him off while making him look a fool—­that is the act of a—­of a Ravengar.’

Ravengar yawned and glanced at his watch.

‘It’s nearly my dinner-time,’ said he.

Again Hugo sprang forward, and, snatching at the watch, tore it and the chain from Ravengar’s waistcoat, dashed them to the floor, and stamped on them.  He was amazed, and he was also delighted, at his own fury.  The lust of destruction had got hold of him.

‘Ass!’ he murmured, suddenly lowering his voice.  ’Can’t you guess what I mean to do?’

‘I cannot,’ Ravengar stammered.

’I mean to put you to the same test to which you put me.  You arranged that I should spend twenty-two hours in a vault without ventilation.  At the end of five hours I was by no means dead.  I might have survived the twenty-two.  But, frankly, I don’t fancy I should.  And I don’t fancy you will.  In fact, I’m convinced that you won’t.’

‘Indeed!’ said Ravengar uncertainly.

‘You think this scene is not real,’ Hugo continued.  ’You think it can’t be real.  You refuse to credit the fact that this time to-morrow you will be dead.  You refuse to admit to yourself that I am in earnest—­deadly, fatal earnest.’

‘Upon my soul!’ Ravengar burst out, standing, ‘I believe you are.’

‘Good,’ said Hugo.  ’You are waking up, positively.  You are getting accustomed to the unpleasant prospect of not dying in your bed surrounded by inconsolable dependants.’