And you, you miserable, snivelling
hypocrite, you little creeping Presbyterian parson, you want me to
shake her! What sort of a wild beast do you suppose I am?"
Wynkoop had taken one hasty step backward, impelled to it by the fierce
anger blazing from those stern gray eyes. But now he paused, and, for
the only time on record, discovered the conventional language of polite
society inadequate to express his needs.
"I think," he said, scarcely realizing his own words, "you are a damned
fool."
Into Hampton's eyes there leaped a light upon which other men had
looked before they died,--the strange mad gleam one sometimes sees in
fighting animals, or amid the fierce charges of war. His hand swept
instinctively backward, closing upon the butt of a revolver beneath his
coat, and for one second he who had dared such utterance looked on
death. Then the hard lines about the man's mouth softened, the fingers
clutching the weapon relaxed, and Hampton laid one opened hand upon the
minister's shrinking shoulder.
"Sit down," he said, his voice unsteady from so sudden a reaction.
"Perhaps--perhaps I don't exactly understand.
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