“Still at Lochleven you did not succeed in forcing him into your dastardly scheme—you did not compel him to aid you in your plot to marry his sister.”
“But for you, Merriwell, I should have succeeded. You ruined my plot. That very night, as I fled in a boat across the bleak bosom of the lake, I swore to turn my attention to you, and put you beyond the possibility of baffling me again. Now you know why I am here. What will you do about it?”
The Spaniard asked the question mockingly. He was flinging defiance in the teeth of the young American.
“You have selected a big task, Mig Bunol.”
“But I have sworn to succeed.”
“You will fail utterly and miserably.”
Bunol lifted one hand to caress the thin, black mustache upon his lip.
“That is what you believe,” he said; “but I know I shall not fail. At Fardale I hated you, but I forgot you after I left the school. Never again would I have given you a thought had you not crossed my path in London. You crossed it at a most unfortunate time for me, as then I was on the very verge of accomplishing my great object.”
“And that object was to ruin Dunbar Budthorne and to make his beautiful sister your wife.”
“I love her!”