“God!” he gasped, in a spasm of irrational fury, “if that brute isn’t with her now.” There was, indeed, no doubt about it. Mr. Manley was snugly ensconced by Mrs. Solent’s fireside, though all Wolf could detect of their two figures was the shoulders of the man, upright in a high-backed chair, and a fragment of his mother’s profile as she bent over the fire.

“Oh, the brute! Oh, the brute!” he groaned, as he sneaked back, returning as stealthily as he had come. “If they’d had the lamp lit⁠—” he added weakly.