'He can help robbing me of my future wife!'
'But she left you of her own accord.'
'Owen, she must marry me. It is essential. You must bring your influence to bear,' Ravengar burst out wildly. 'She must be my wife!'
'My dear fellow,' Hugo protested calmly, 'what are you dreaming of? I have no influence. You talk like a man at his wits' end.'
There was a silence.
'I am a man at his wits' end,' Ravengar murmured, half sadly. 'I trusted that girl. She knows all my secrets.'
'What secrets?' asked Hugo, struck by the phrase.
'My business secrets, of course. What else do you fancy?'
'My fancy is too active,' said Hugo, with careful casualness. 'It runs away with me. I was thinking of other sorts of secrets, and of that curious principle of English law that a wife can't give evidence against her husband.... You must pardon my fancy,' he added.
'Do you mean to insinuate that my eagerness to marry Camilla Payne is in order to prevent her from being able to—'