At the end of that time he took the revolver once more from the
drawer of his writing-table and fingered it.
"Da Souza," he said, "if I had you just for five minutes at Bekwando
we would talk together of black-mail, you and I, we would talk of
marrying your daughter. We would talk then to some purpose - you
hound! Get out of the room as fast as your legs will carry you.
This revolver is loaded, and I'm not quite master of myself."
Da Souza made off with amazing celerity. Trent drew a short, quick
breath. There was a great deal of the wild beast left in him still.
At that moment the desire to kill was hot in his blood. His eyes
glared as he walked up and down the room. The years of civilisation
seemed to have become as nothing. The veneer of the City speculator
had fallen away. He was once more as he had been in those wilder
days when men made their own laws, and a man's hold upon life was a
slighter thing than his thirst for gold. As such, he found the
atmosphere of the little room choking him, he drew open the French
windows of his little study and strode out into the perfumed and
sunlit morning. As such, he found himself face to face unexpectedly
and without warning with the girl whom he had discovered sketching
in the shrubbery the day before.
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