“Then what say you to this bond?” said he, taking a paper from his pocket-book. “Is this a written promise that if you succeed to the fortune and estates of the late Walter Carew, you will pay me, Count Anatole Ysaffich, one hundred thousand pounds?”
“I own every word of it,” said I.
“And for what service is this the recompense? Answer me that.”
“That I am indebted to you for having opened to me the path by which my right was to be established.”
“Say rather that by me was the fraud of a false name, and birth, and rank first suggested; that from Gervois the courier I created you Carew the gentleman. The whole scheme was and is my own. You are as nothing in it.”
Stupefied, almost stunned, by the outrageous insult of his words, I did not speak, and he went on,—
“But you have not taken me unawares. I was not without my suspicion that such an incident as this might arise. I foresaw at least its possibility, and was prepared for it. Be advised, then, in time, since if your foot was on the very threshold of that door you hope to call your own, the power lies with me to drag you back again and proclaim you to all the world a swindler.”
My passion boiled over at the word, and I sprung towards him, I know not with what thoughts of vengeance. He darted back suddenly, and gained the door.
“If you had dared,” said he, with a savage grin, “you had been a corpse on that floor the minute after.”
The shining blade of a stiletto glanced within his waistcoat as he spoke. The next moment he had descended the stairs, and was gone.