White and trembling, the girl shrank into the shade.
“You villain!” went on the old man, struggling with his passion.
“Stop!” exclaimed Jack, the veins in his forehead swelling ominously. “You must be mad! Don’t strike me!—you are an old man!”
“Strike you! No, no; blows are of no avail with such as you! Curs take no heed of blows! What other way can one punish the scoundrel who repays hospitality by treachery? Was it not enough that you forced your way into my house, broke my bread, but you must waylay a credulous girl and lead her in the first step to ruin. Oh, spare your breath, viper! I know you and your race too well. Ruin and desolation walk hand in hand with you; but you have reckoned without your host here. My knowledge of you arms me with power to protect a weak, innocent girl from your wiles. Scoundrel!”
“You use strong words,” he said, and his voice was low and hoarse. “You are an old man and—you are her father. You call me a scoundrel; I call you a fool, for if I were half the scoundrel you think me, you’d be to blame for any harm I might have done. I’ve done none. But that’s no thanks to you, who keep such a girl as she is shut up as you do, and leave her to wander about unprotected. You know me, you say, and you know no good of me; that’s as it may be, but I say when you call me a scoundrel, you lie!”
“Yes, I know you. I know the stock from whence you sprung, villains all! I thought that here, at least, I was safe from your kind; but Fate led you here—thank Fate that I let you go unhurt. Take an old man’s advice, and, unlike your race, for once leave the prey which you thought so easy to destroy. Go!”
“I am going,” he said, grimly. “I shall go, because if I stayed all night I should not convince you that I am not the scoundrel you suppose me. But, if you think that I am to be frightened by these sort of threats, you are mistaken. I have said that I will come back, and I will!” and with a curt nod he strode off.
CHAPTER V.
It was the evening of the day on which Jack Newcombe had parted from Gideon and Una, and the young moon fell peacefully on the irregular pile of the ancient mansion known familiarly for twenty miles of its neighborhood as The Hurst.