Storms started upright, with a snarl that seemed to come from the animal to which he felt himself compared, and for a moment his face partook of the resemblance.
"Such animals have been dangerous before now!" he said, with a hoarse threat in his voice.
Sir Noel turned away from that vicious face, sick with disgust.
"If a harmless bark is not enough to start you into taking care of yourself, take the bite. I did not mean to give it yet, but you will have it. If you will not pay my price for your son's honor, do it to save his life, for it was he who killed William Jessup."
Sir Noel arose from his seat, walked across the room and rang the bell. When the servant answered it he pointed toward the door, saying very quietly, "Show this person out."
CHAPTER LIX.
PLEADING FOR DELAY.
HAD her sin killed that good old man? Was the penalty of what seemed but an evasion, death—death to the being she loved better than any other on earth save one, that one suffering also from her fault? Had she, in her fond selfishness, turned that pretty home-nest into a tomb? Had God so punished her for this one offence, that she must never lift her head to the sunlight again?
Sitting there alone in the midst of the shadows that gathered around her with funereal solemnity, Ruth asked herself this question, pressing her slender hands together, and shivering with nervous cold as she looked around on the dark objects in the little room, linked with such cruel tenderness to the father she had lost, that they seemed to reproach her on every side.