Marmaduke glared on him, but durst not speak; he was awed by his cousin's sternness.
"Speak!" commanded Miles again impatiently; "I have yet a task to perform before we part, so hasten this; she must not see the rest. Come, man!" he uttered contemptuously, as the other visibly trembled, "speak the words: I promise you, reckless as I am of life, I have no purpose of taking yours, if you speak." There was that about him which terrified the other; it was the first time they had met out of court since the suit.
"I spoke hastily, angrily," stammered Marmaduke at last, his eyes bent on the ground, one of his hands nervously turning a letter on the table, the other in his bosom; "but this woman goaded me to it."
"'Tis well," uttered Miles scornfully, "well done, to accuse another to shield our own fault. You know my mother to have been pure as ever woman was, only the law wanted proof."
"I believe she was a good woman," ejaculated the other, fearing some snare before witnesses.
"Fellow," cried Miles, seeing his hesitation, "I am not here to catch you in your words: you have calumniated, you shall restore; you have lied, you shall unlie. Do you not know in your heart that, though proof be wanting, my mother was a wife?" He made a movement towards where his cousin stood.
"I believe it," fell from the lips of the awed coward; "but you know the law will have——"
"Enough!" exclaimed Miles, waving his hand contemptuously. "I have devoted my life, with all its energies, to prove her to have been such, not for the sake of the land and tenements around us, but to rebuild in splendour an angel's darkened fame. Now, Mary, you have heard his retraction, leave us awhile, I will rejoin you before you have quitted the grounds."
"Let me stay, I beseech you, Miles," she whispered, her frame trembling with fear as he approached to put her forth.
"There can be no secrets she may not hear," hazarded Marmaduke, in terror himself at the idea of being alone with Miles. All the fear he had experienced as a boy of the other, when as children they quarrelled, stood before him, for Miles was of strong build, and great stature; he seemed to tower above his cousin, though actually less in height. A strange expression passed over Miles's face, as he looked from the one to the other.