me?” exclaimed the other passionately: “no. How could I expect it? She was a mere child, budding into maidenhood; but her eyes brightened when I came, and she was my little companion here in the happy days that can never be recalled. James Huish, I loved that girl with all my soul. My love has grown for her, and my first thought was to seek her on my return, and try to win her for my wife.”
“It’s deuced unfortunate, Rob,” said the other in his nervous way. Then, with a kind of bravado, he continued half laughingly: “But then, you see, you have been away two years, and you have stopped away too long. It’s a pity, too, such friends as we were.”
Ere he had finished speaking his companion had seized his arm as in a vice.
“Huish!” he cried hoarsely, “if you speak to me in that tone of voice I will not answer for the consequences. I do not wish to be rash, or to condemn you unheard; but this is of such vital import to me that, by God, if you speak of it in that flippant tone again, I shall forget that we are gentlemen, and, like some brute beast, I shall have you by the throat.”
“Loose my arm,” exclaimed the other, flushing more deeply; “you hurt me.”
“You hurt me,” cried the other, trembling with passion—“to the heart.”
“If I have wronged you,” exclaimed Huish, “even if duelling is out of fashion, I can give you satisfaction.”
“Satisfaction!” cried the other bitterly. “Look here, James Huish. You have been a man of fashion, while I have been a blunt soldier. If what I hear be true, would it be any satisfaction for me to shoot you through the head, and break that poor girl’s heart, for I could do it if I liked; and if I did not, would it be any satisfaction to let you make yourself a murderer?”
Huish shuddered slightly, and the colour paled in his cheeks.
“Now answer my question. I say, is this true?”
“We are old friends,” retorted Huish, “but you have no right to question me.”
“Right or no right, I will question you,” exclaimed the other passionately, “and answer me you shall before you leave this spot.”
Huish glanced uneasily to the right and left, and, seeing this, his companion laid his hand once more upon his arm.
“No,” he exclaimed, “you do not go; and for your own sake, do not provoke me.”
The speaker’s voice trembled with rage, which he seemed to be fighting hard to control, while Huish was by turns flushed with anger, and pale with something near akin to fear.
“I will not answer your questions,” he exclaimed desperately.
“You promised me you would, and you shall, James Huish. Look here, sir. A little over two years ago there was a servant at the cottage—a cold hard girl. I come back here, and I find this same girl now a woman. She recognised me when I met her yesterday, and, believing that I was going to the cottage, she stopped me, and by degrees told me such a tale as I would I had never lived to hear. I went away again yesterday half mad, hardly believing that it could be true. To-day I returned, and she pointed you out to me as the villain—as Mr. Ranby—a serpent crawling here to poison under an assumed name.”
“Go on,” said the other. “You meant marriage of course.”
“I tell you, man, I never had a thought for that poor girl that was not pure and true. If I had spoken so soon, it might have checked an intercourse that was to me the happiest of my life. Now I come back and find that the peace of that little home is blasted—that the woman I have loved has been made the toy of your pleasure; that you whom I believed to be a gentleman, a man of honour, have proved to be the greatest of villains upon this earth.”
“Have a care what you say,” said Huish hotly.
“I will have a care,” cried the other. “I will not condemn you on the words of others; I would not so condemn the man who was my closest friend. Speak, then; tell me. I say, is this all true?”
“You have no right to question me.”
“I say, is this true, James Huish?”
“Look here. What is the use of making a fuss like this over a bit of an affair of gallantry.”
“What!” cried the other, grasping the arm of Huish once more tightly. “An affair of gallantry? Is it, then, an affair of gallantry to come upon a home like a blight—to destroy—yes, blast the life of a pure, trusting, simple-hearted girl, who believes you to be the soul of honour? James Huish, I do not understand these terms; but tell me this,” he continued in a voice that was terrible in its cold measured tones, “is this true?”
“Is what true?” said the other, with an attempt at bravado.
“You know what I mean—about Mary Riversley.”
“Well, there, yes, I suppose it is,” said Huish, with assumed indifference; “and now the murder’s out.”
“No,” exclaimed the other, with the rage he had been beating down struggling hard for the mastery; “not murder: it is worse. But look here, Huish. This girl is fatherless,” he continued in a voice quite unnaturally calm. “I loved her very dearly, but, poor girl, her affection has gone to another. She cannot be my wife, but I can be her friend and I will. You will marry her at once.”
“Not likely,” was the scornful reply, as Huish tried to shake his arm free.
“I say, James Huish, you will marry this poor girl—no, this dear, sweet, injured lady—at once. The world would call her fallen; I say she is a good, true woman, as pure as snow, and in the sight of God Almighty your own wife. But we have customs here in England that must be observed. I say again, you will marry Ruth Riversley—at once?”
“I—will—not!” said Huish slowly and distinctly, the pain he suffered bringing a burning spot in each cheek, and his temper now mastering the dread he felt of his companion.
“I say again,” said the other, in the same strange unnatural tone, “you will marry Miss Riversley—at once.”
“And I say,” cried Huish, now half mad with rage and pain, “I will not. Marry her yourself,” he said brutally, “if—”
“Damned traitor?” cried the other, choking the completion of the sentence, as, active as a panther, he caught Huish by the throat. “Dog! coward! scoundrel! Down on your knees, and swear you will marry her, or I will not answer for your life!”
Huish in his dread half wrenched himself free, and a wild, strange cry escaped his lips. Then, nerved by his position, he turned upon his assailant, and a deadly struggle commenced.
They were well matched, but the young officer, hardened by a rough life, was the more active, and as they swayed to and fro in a fierce embrace, he more than once seemed on the point of forcing his adversary to the ground; but Huish putting forth his whole strength recovered himself, and the struggle was renewed with greater violence than before.
It was an aimless encounter, such as would result from two men engaging when maddened with rage. Their cheeks were purple, their veins
