"I'm _through_!" cried Mr. Montagu. "_Who_ are you? _What_ are you?"
At the determined finality of the voice the boy quivered like a helpless thing, and his stuttering ejaculations came as if shaken out of him by the shivering of his body.
Never yet had he been so awful as in the torment and majesty that gazed like fate at Henry Montagu now, and the frightful fire of the eyes seemed to dry up the tears on his cheeks at its first flare of accusing righteousness.
"_I'm the child that you and your wife refused to have!_"
As the aghast man shrank back before his blighting fury, he leaned farther and farther toward him.
"_Now_ do you know why I hate you as no human thing can hate? _Your wilful waste has made my hideous want!_ Now do you know why I said I'd done a more terrific thing than had ever been done in the world's history before? _I've gotten in!_ At last, at last, I've gotten in, in spite of you, and after she was dead! I've done a greater and more impossible thing than that great Mystery the world adores! I've gotten in despite you, and without even a _woman's_ help! When we spoke of _that_ life once before to-night, I shocked you! Do you believe _now_ that my history is more terrible, or not? He suffered, and suffered, and He died. But He'd _lived_! His torture was a few hours--for mine to-night, I've waited almost as many years as He did, and to what end? _To nothing!_ God, God, do you see _that_?"
He twisted open his hands and held out his bruised wrists before the trembling man's eyes. "For all those years--"
He suddenly drew himself to his full height and threw them passionately above his head in the posture that had haunted Henry Montagu from the first instant's glimpse of him.
"For all those endless years, ever since your marriage-night, I've stood beating, beating, beating at the door of life until my wrists have bled! And you didn't hear me! You couldn't and she wouldn't! You didn't want to! You wouldn't listen! And you--you never have heard that desperate pounding and calling, not even to-night, though even so, with that woman out of the way, I made you _feel_ me! But _she'd_ heard me, the ghoul! She heard me again and again! I made her! I told her what she was, and that you knew it, and I meant it! Her marriage certificate was her license! She gave you a wanton's love, and you gave her just what you got! And I made her understand that! I made her understand it right here in this place! That's why I wanted to come here--I could see only her picture, and I wanted to see a _real_ one of them! Until to-night, I could never see either of you, but I always knew where you were!