“Pray be calm,” said Lydia. “I am told that you wish to speak to me.”
“I don’t wish to speak to you ever again,” said Cashel, hoarsely. “You told your servant to throw me down the steps. That’s enough for me.”
Lydia caught from him the tendency to sob which he was struggling with; but she repressed it, and answered, firmly, “If my servant has been guilty of the least incivility to you, Mr. Cashel Byron, he has exceeded his orders.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Cashel. “He may thank his luck that he has his head on. If I had planted on him that time—but HE doesn’t matter. Hold on a bit—I can’t talk—I shall get my second wind presently, and then—” Cashel stopped a moment to pant, and then asked, “Why are you going to give me up?”
Lydia ranged her wits in battle array, and replied,
“Do you remember our conversation at Mrs. Hoskyn’s?”
“Yes.”
“You admitted then that if the nature of your occupation became known to me our acquaintance should cease. That has now come to pass.”
“That was all very fine talk to excuse my not telling you. But I find, like many another man when put to the proof, that I didn’t mean it. Who told you I was a fighting man?”
“I had rather not tell you that.”