'You hate me?'
'Not a bit.'
'Do you think I'm too old to marry, or what is it?'
'It's just like this, Louis, my friend: I have every intention of marrying Miss Payne myself.'
'You!... Ah!... Indeed!'
'I have so decided. And when I decide, the thing is as good as done.'
'And that's why you were watching last night! Good! Oh, good! Only I may as well inform you, Owen, that if Camilla Payne marries anyone but me, there will be murder. And no ordinary murder, either!'
Hugo took a turn in the gallery. He felt genuinely sorry for the gray and desperate man, driven by the intensity of emotion to utterances which were merely absurd.
'Louis,' he remarked, with a melancholy kindliness of tone, 'fate has a grudge against us two. It ruined our youth, and now it's embroiling us once more. Can't we both be philosophical? Can't we contrive to look at the thing in a—'
'Enough!' Ravengar almost yelled. 'You always talked that kind of d——d nonsense, you did! Unless you can arrange to say you'll give her up, you may as well hold your tongue.'