I would not suffer Glanville to proceed. I interrupted him with fresh arguments and entreaties, to which he seemed at last to submit, and I was in the firm hope of having conquered his determination, when we were startled by a sudden and violent noise in the hall.
"It is Thornton," said Glanville, calmly. "I told them not to admit him, and he is forcing his way."
Scarcely had Sir Reginald said this, before Thornton burst abruptly into the room.
Although it was scarcely noon, he was more than half intoxicated, and his eyes swam in his head with a maudlin expression of triumph and insolence, as he rolled towards us.
"Oh, oh! Sir Reginald," he said, "thought of giving me the slip, eh? Your d—d servants said you were out; but I soon silenced them. 'Egad I made them as nimble as cows in a cage—I have not learnt the use of my fists for nothing. So, you're going abroad to-morrow; without my leave, too— pretty good joke that, indeed. Come, come, my brave fellow, you need not scowl at me in that way. Why, you look as surly as a butcher's dog with a broken head."
Glanville, who was lived with ill-suppressed rage, rose haughtily.
"Mr. Thornton," he said, in a calm voice, although he was trembling in his extreme passion, from head to foot, "I am not now prepared to submit to your insolence and intrusion. You will leave this room instantly. If you have any further demands upon me, I will hear them to-night at any hour you please to appoint."
"No, no, my fine fellow," said Thornton, with a coarse chuckle; "you have as much wit as three folks, two fools, and a madman; but you won't do me, for all that. The instant my back is turned, your's will be turned too; and by the time I call again, your honour will be half way to Calais. But—bless my stars, Mr. Pelham, is that you? I really did not see you before; I suppose you are not in the secret?"
"I have no secrets from Mr. Pelham," said Glanville; "nor do I care if you discuss the whole of your nefarious transactions with me in his presence. Since you doubt my word, it is beneath my dignity to vindicate it, and your business can as well be dispatched now, as hereafter. You have heard rightly, that I intend leaving England to-morrow; and now, Sir, what is your will?"
"By G—d, Sir Reginald Glanville!" exclaimed Thornton, who seemed stung to the quick by Glanville's contemptuous coldness, "you shall not leave England without my leave. Ay, you may frown, but I say you shall not; nay, you shall not budge a foot from this very room unless I cry, 'Be it so!'"