"Of course!" he said, drily.
"And you have run them down to meet this scheme of yours."
"Yes, of course!" said Falconer, again. "My dear Steve—Sir Stephen—pardon!—your fate, as I have said, is in my hands. It is simply a matter of tit-for-tat. You had your turn some years ago out there"—he waved his hand. "It is my turn now. You can't complain. Do you admit the justice of the thing?"
Sir Stephen sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands for a moment, then he looked up at Stafford.
"He's right. It was his turn. He has taken it—and with it every penny I possess. It means ruin—complete ruin! Worse even than the loss of every penny; for—for—I—God help me!—can't afford to go into court and have the past raked up—And he knows it—he knows it, Stafford!"
The sight of the old man's anguish almost drove Stafford mad.
"Have you no mercy, sir?" he said to Falconer. "Grant that my father had injured you—isn't this rather too awful a revenge to exact? I—I—I—don't understand all that I have heard; but—but"—an oath broke from his hot lips—"will nothing less than the ruin of my father satisfy you?"
Falconer looked from one to the other and moistened his lips, while his hands gripped each other behind his back.
"I think you have misunderstood me," he said, in a dry, harsh voice; "I have no intention of ruining your father or of depriving him of his good name. Mind! if I did I should only be taking my pound of flesh: and I may tell you that before I entered this house this afternoon I had resolved to have it. But I heard something that induced me to change my mind."
Sir Stephen leant forward, his eyes fixed eagerly on the speaker, and Stafford in his anxiety held his breath and pressed his father's shoulder encouragingly.