"Hartwell gone, Parkfield mortgaged to the hilt, and now Ketton. What next, sir? Thank Heaven, you cannot play ducks and drakes with this place, or you would do it, I suppose! But I could forgive you all you have done if you had spared Violet."
The color mounted to the young man's face, and he bit his lip.
"In her, and her alone, lay your chance of salvation. You flung it away as ruthlessly as you have flung away your property. You have ruined yourself and broken her heart, and you sit there smiling——"
As if he could endure it no longer, Lord Blair rose.
"Broken her heart! Broken Violet's heart!" he repeated, with mingled amazement and incredulity. "Good Heavens, who told you that? I don't believe she has a heart to break! We—we broke off the match by mutual agreement. She was quite jolly about it! She—oh, come, sir, you don't know Violet as well as I do. I'll answer for it she thinks herself well out of it; as she is, by George! Any woman would get a bad bargain in me, I'm afraid."
"I wish that I could contradict you," said the earl grimly. "I pity any woman who trusts herself to your tender mercies. As for Violet Graham, I am glad that she has escaped; but your conduct was dishonorable——"
The young man's face paled, and his hands clinched with a passion of which he had shown no trace during the fight of yesterday.
"That will do, sir," he said, in a low voice. "No man, not even you, has the right to use such a word to me! I tell you it would have been dishonorable to have married Violet for her money; it was more honorable to keep from it. I'm going. As to Ketton, it's my own——"
"For the present," put in the earl, with fearful sarcasm.