"Will you tell me how you killed him?" Livingstone asked, controlling his voice wonderfully.
"That is what I wish to do," Bruce said. I believe he was glad of the opportunity of showing us how much we had misjudged him in thinking him harmless, for a curious sort of grin was hovering about his mouth. Guy, whose eyes were bent down at the moment, did not see it, or the tale would never have been told.
"You know how you were all against me at Kerton," he began. "She did not care for me then, perhaps; but I would have been so patient and persevering that she must have loved me at last--only you never gave me fair play. Ah! do you think, because I was ugly and awkward, I had no chance?"
"No; but because she knew you were a coward," Guy said.
There was something grand in the utter indifference with which Bruce met the insult.
"You are wrong," he replied, coolly; "she did not know it. You all did, and reckoned on my being long-suffering and inoffensive. I saw, at last, what Forrester had done; yet I never guessed but that she would marry me. I trusted to her father and her own fears for keeping her straight. After marriage I would have tried still what great love and tenderness could do. I meant--never mind what I meant--it's all over now. I was nearly mad for a week after their flight. Then I became quite cool, and I said, 'I will kill him myself.' And so I did. Mind, I swear, Allan knew nothing of it till all was done. I thought I should be brave enough for that. Fifty times during the months that I tracked them, always changing my disguise, I nearly caught him alone; but each time I was balked. Wherever they went, I watched under their windows for the chance of his coming out; but I only saw--"
He gnashed his teeth, and rolled over and over in a paroxysm of jealous recollection. We guessed what he meant. Then he went on: "That night he sauntered backward and forward for some time. I thought he would not go far enough away, and I called to the devil to help me. He did; for, very soon, Forrester walked straight down the path. I crept after him till he had gone some hundred yards--my heart was beating so quickly that I could hardly breathe--then I ran forward and stood before him. I had taken off the black wig and beard that I always wore, and he knew me directly.