"Forgive me!"
"Look here, Pettingdale," he burst forth fiercely. "This nonsense must be stopped. Are you an idiot, that you cannot see what is going on, or are you in the scheme to entrap my——"
Roger Pettingdale turned round upon him.
"I beg your pardon, Squire Leigh?" he said quietly, as one who had not heard aright.
"Tut! Nonsense!" retorted the Squire. "Don't 'beg-your-pardon' me! You know full well what I mean. Are you blind? I say it must be stopped! You know full well that that precious son of mine has gone stark mad over that chit of a girl of yours!"
"And what of that, Squire Leigh?" replied Roger Pettingdale, drawing himself to his full height and looking at the Squire from underneath his heavy eyebrows. "If that precious son of yours has gone stark mad over my daughter, what of that?"
"Why, this," thundered the Squire: "that it must be stopped!"
"Very well, why don't you stop it?" replied Roger Pettingdale.
The retort, perfectly cool and natural, laid bare all the Squire's impotence at one stroke, and drove him well-nigh to frenzy. His eyes shot fire, and those veins in his forehead swelled as though they would burst.