“Stay! I threatened no one.”

Her look dropped for an instant to his bleeding hand. He lifted it to his mouth, wiped it on his sleeve, and again folded it over the other. “ Mr. Eugene Wrayburn,” he repeated.

“Why do you mention that name again and again, Mr. Headstone?”

“Because it is the text of the little I have left to say. Observe! There are no threats in it. If I utter a threat, stop me, and fasten it upon me. Mr. Eugene Wrayburn.”

A worse threat than was conveyed in his manner of uttering the name, could hardly have escaped him.