Then he half-rose, and, with a grotesque attempt at a smile, wagged his head at Percy Levant, who stood erect and alert.
“This—this—is a very pretty little plot, my dear Percy,” he said; “but you don’t imagine that the dear marquis will take your word against mine? Marquis,” and he managed to raise his eyes to the fierce face with a ghastly attempt at a smile, “I am sorry that you should have been deceived by what was palpably an attempt on my part to lure this gentleman into a trap. He is—you don’t know him, but I do, and I must introduce him. This man is an adventurer, a scamp who would sell his soul for a ten-pound note. You won’t let his word weigh against mine—against Spenser Churchill’s!”
“It is quite true, my lord,” said Percy Levant. “As this man says—I am an adventurer. I have been willing to sell my soul for a ten-pound note; I am utterly unworthy of belief,” his voice grew hoarse and broken, “and it is only the influence of a woman’s pure and spotless nature that has, at the eleventh hour, induced me to stop short in the villainous work to which this man tempted me. I am as bad as he—up to this point. I ask for no mercy, no indulgence, no credit; from his own lips you shall judge him, and from the papers you have in your hand.”
The marquis just glanced at him—no more, then turned his fierce eyes upon Spenser Churchill again.
“Very good,” said Spenser Churchill, shrugging his shoulders, and stretching a trembling hand toward his hat. “I—I leave the whole business to you, my dear marquis. I will not condescend to—to answer the accusations which—which——” He shuffled nearer to the door, and his heart rose as he saw that neither Percy Levant nor the marquis made any attempt to stop him—“which my character will enable me to—to repel. I wish you success, Mr. Percy Levant, and—and good-morning.”
He made an ironical bow as he backed toward the door, and was turning to make a rush for it, when Lord Cecil stepped before him.
At sight of him Spenser Churchill’s face grew livid, and he put up his hand as if to ward off an expected blow; but Lord Cecil scarcely looked at him, and passed to the marquis’ side.
“Is—is this true, my lord?” he demanded, hoarsely.
The marquis dropped into a chair, and, still clutching the papers, gazed up at him with a wild despair which would have touched even Lord Cecil if he had not loved Doris too well to think of any one but her.
“It is true, my lord!” said Percy Levant, solemnly and sorrowfully. “Would to Heaven that both he and I had lied! It is true, every word of it! The separation between Miss Marlowe and yourself was worked by Spenser Churchill. He did, by word and deed, sell her to me.”