The excited men barely had been separated when Corway spoke with passionate emphasis, “You shall hear from me.”
“Quite soon enough for your courage,” sneered Thorpe.
“No, no, my brother shall not fight with him!” exclaimed Virginia, appalled at the magnitude the quarrel had assumed.
Swiftly she glanced at Rutley and said with tremulous lips: “What have you told him to cause such fearful passion?”
“What you bade me,” he coolly replied, and with a gloating smile on his lips, added: “The result is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Not so terrible,” she gasped. “There must be some awful mistake.”
And Rutley’s smile deepened, but as he looked into her horrified eyes and blanched face, and noted the change from vengeance to anxiety and consternation fast coming over her, he knew but too well when the change was complete, in a moment of frenzied zeal to explain and save her brother, she, womanlike, was likely to undo and wreck all his work.
He realized that the moment was fraught with the gravest danger to his plans and person, and he acted quickly, but with the utmost coolness.
Her hand held straight down by her side was closed tightly, expressive of immediate and determined action.
He gripped her wrist. It hurt her. The action concealed from others by the folds of her dress, succeeded in diverting her attention, and he followed it up by whispering, so that she alone heard him, “Remember—the material you gave me; Corway has met his deserts and you are avenged!”