And, meantime, Steenie was finding that when one has a handsome face and jolly humour, it is easy to live by one's wits, even though honour be in the mire.
So the years rolled by. He watched them go as the wood spattered and burnt on the hearth, spurting out little jets of flame or leaping up the chimney in long, red tongues of fiery heat.
Michael, his son! _His son_. His father, it seemed at times, for here was Sir Henry over again, save for sudden fits of wild, rollicking devilry, which came of an Irish birthright, and delighted Sir Stephen hugely.
Mike and he might have been the jolliest of comrades were it not for the young fool's absurd ideas of honour.
Again Sir Stephen filled up his glass. He would at least drown melancholy and memory too.
After all, he hoped spoil-sport Mike would stay at Kérnak. The lad took life like an old man, and left his father behind in the merry ranks of youth.
Yes! of youth. He was not old--_would_ not be old. He was young--merry. Laughter on his lips--in his heart, now the ghosts of the past were laid.
And behind him one was moving forward, nearer--nearer--nearer.
A stooping shadow, with a cap--blood-red in the dying light--on its head, and a face twisted and mocking.
But Sir Stephen was looking into the embers and seeing long years of laughter and song therein.
Oh, that stooping shadow! How stealthily it advanced.
An arm raised swiftly, and as swiftly descending.
A sudden, terrible pain, a suffocating sense of agony, a blinding rush of memories, of fear, of terror; and then a figure lurched forward, slipping sideways from the chair across the hearth, overturning a half-filled bowl of punch in its fall.
But Marcel Trouet stood cursing volubly in hot anger and dismay, for the features, upturned to his, were not those of Morice Conyers after all.
The moments crept by leaden-footed. But Marcel Trouet stood still--very still--looking down at that white face, those stiffening lips.
Hardened in crime though he was, murder in cold blood had never come his way before, and the horror of a useless deed held him there, actually trembling a little as he watched the slowly oozing blood trickle across the white hearth.
And the twilight was deepening in the silent room.