“All the same,” he cried, “I’m afraid.  I’ve been confident enough until now.  Now I’m afraid.  I wish the fellow had been killed.”

“Kill him, then!” laughed the Irishman.  “I won’t give you up to the police.”

He crossed the room to the door, but halted short of it and turned about again, and he looked back very curiously at the man who sat crouched in his chair by the window.  It had occurred to him several times that Stewart was very unlike himself.  The man was quite evidently tired and ill, and that might account for some of the nervousness, but this fierce malignity was something a little beyond O’Hara’s comprehension.  It seemed to him that the elder man had the air of one frightened beyond the point the circumstances warranted.

“Are you going back to town,” he asked, “or do you mean to stay the night?”

“I shall stay the night,” Stewart said.  “I’m too tired to bear the ride.”  He glanced up and caught the other’s eyes fixed upon him.  “Well!” he cried, angrily.  “What is it?  What are you looking at me like that for?  What do you want?”

“I want nothing,” said the Irishman, a little sharply.  “And I wasn’t aware that I’d been looking at you in any unusual way.  You’re precious jumpy to-day, if you want to know....  Look here!” He came back a step, frowning.  “Look here!” he repeated.  “I don’t quite make you out.  Are you keeping back anything?  Because if you are, for Heaven’s sake have it out here and now!  We’re all in this game together, and we can’t afford to be anything but frank with one another.  We can’t afford to make reservations.  It’s altogether too dangerous for everybody.  You’re too much frightened.  There’s no apparent reason for being so frightened as that.”

Captain Stewart drew a long breath between closed teeth, and afterward he looked up at the younger man coldly.

“We need not discuss my personal feelings, I think,” said he.  “They have no—­no bearing on the point at issue.  As you say, we are all in this thing together, and you need not fear that I shall fail to do my part, as I have done it in the past....  That’s all, I believe.”

“Oh, as you like!  As you like!” said the Irishman, in the tone of one rebuffed.  He turned again and left the room, closing the door behind him.  Outside on the stairs it occurred to him that he had forgotten to ask the other man what this fellow’s name was—­the fellow who lay wounded up-stairs.  No, he had asked once, but in the interest of the conversation the question had been lost.  He determined to inquire again that evening at dinner.