"I can. Englishmen like fair play. I will tell all England how you took advantage of a girl's youth and inexperience, above all, of the fact of her being an orphan, to beguile her into making you a promise of marriage, and how since you have traded, you coward, on her weakness, on her love for her husband, on the best part of her nature; and I will tell my story so honestly, so well, that every honest man shall hate you. You may have frightened my poor wife with shadows, you cannot so frighten me. I tell you, and I am speaking truthfully, that I do not care if you print her letters and every man, woman and child read them; they shall read my vindication of her and my denunciation of you."
"You see, Lord Atherton, she did promise to marry me, and I did reckon upon her fortune. What will you give me for the letters?"
"Nothing. If, after reading them, I find you really received, from the pure and noble lady who is now my wife, a promise of marriage, I will give you some compensation. I will give you two thousand pounds, although I know that promise to have been drawn from her by fraud, treachery and cunning."
Allan Lyster began to see, in his own phrase, that the game was up. He unlocked the door of a little cabinet, and took from it a bundle of papers. He gave them to Lord Atherton, who, still standing, read them word for word.
"It is as I thought," he said, when he came to the last. "It is the worst case of fraud, deception and cowardice I have ever met. Nothing could be more mean, more dishonorable, more revolting. Still, as the promise is true, I will give you a check for two thousand pounds when you have destroyed them."
Very slowly and deliberately Allan Lyster tore the letters into the smallest shreds, until they all were destroyed, then Lord Atherton, taking a check book from his pocket, wrote him out a check for two thousand pounds.
Allan took it sullenly enough.
"If I had my rights," he said, "I should have more than that every quarter."
"That is as it may be," said Lord Atherton, quietly. "You may have deceived a very young and inexperienced girl; but you would not, perhaps, have been so successful when that same girl was able to compare you with others. Now I have paid you; remember, I do not seek to purchase your silence. I leave it entirely to your own option whether you tell your story or not. I know that you cannot brand yourself with deeper disgrace and shame than by making public your share in this transaction."
Allan Lyster murmured some insolent words which his lordship did not choose to hear. He straightened the lash of his whip.