“I am here to pay it.”
“Ah!”
“Principal and interest calculated up to twelve o'clock this eleventh day of March. It wants five minutes to twelve. I offer you principal and interest—eight hundred and twenty-two pounds fourteen shillings and fivepence three farthings before these witnesses—and demand the title deeds.”
Meadows hung his head, but he was not a man to waste words in mere scolding. He took the blow with forced calmness as who should say, “This is your turn—the next is mine.”
“Miss Merton,” said he, almost in a whisper, “I never had the honor to receive you here before and I never shall again. How long do you give me to move my things?”
“Can you not guess?” inquired the other with a shade of curiosity.
“Why, of course you will put me to all the inconvenience you can. Come, now, am I to move all my furniture and effects out of this great house in twenty-four hours?”
“I give you more than that.”
“How kind! What, you give me a week perhaps?” asked Meadows incredulously.
“More than that, you fool! Don't you see that it is on next Lady-day you will be turned into the street. Aha! woman-worshiper, on Lady-day! A tooth for a tooth!” And the old man ground his teeth, which were white as ivory, and his fist clinched itself, while his eye glittered, and he swelled out from the chair, and literally bristled with hate—“A tooth for a tooth!”