Disdaining to notice this insinuation, Florence hesitated a moment.
“Are you quite sure that he intended calling this morning?”
“Positive,” the man answered glibly. “He says, says he——”
Before he could finish his sentence, the door of the inner room was thrown open. The foreign-looking stranger Florence had seen on her previous visit emerged from it, and, seizing the fellow by the collar, shook him till he shrieked for mercy, and then flung him on the ground.
“Scoundrel!” he exclaimed furiously. “Villain without a heart! Did you forget that there was some one at hand to refute your falsehoods? Has not your wretched master worked evil enough, that you make use of his name to hatch more?”
The man cowered in the corner where he had been thrown—shielding his head with his arm, as if he feared another attack.
“’Pon my word, sir,” he answered servilely, “’pon my word, you are too hard upon me—you are indeed! I’m only doing as I was bid.”
With a contemptuous execration, the gentleman turned from him to Florence, whom his unexpected appearance had stupefied. His voice lowered to tones of the utmost gentleness and compassion as he addressed her.
“I regret that I have alarmed you, but this rascal’s audacity put me into such a passion that I could not control myself. I am sorry to say that he has been willfully deceiving you.”
She could not speak; but her startled glance wandered from his bronzed face to the crouching figure of the servant, who had gathered himself farther from the powerful arm of the indignant stranger.