Just then, in an evil moment, Lord Harry noticed that Norton, in dragging his victim from the chancel, had pulled off the top button of his shirt, which had fallen open, giving to view two or three links of a gold chain and the corner of a shagreen case.
He stumbled forward.
“Hullo!” he exclaimed, snatching at the chain and dragging up the miniature attached to it. “Ha, ha! Here’s sport! See what the Puritan dog has got hanging from his collar?”
Gabriel, half maddened by feeling the sot’s fingers on Hilary’s picture, writhed in a frantic effort to free himself. To be forced to stand there helplessly, unable to stir hand or foot, was a torture he had never before felt.
“Oh, fie, Ecclesiastes! we named you well,” said Norton, with his scoffing laugh. “You deal, like Solomon, in numbers. Shame on you! the portrait of a fair lady of Hereford on your person all the time you were philandering with pretty Helena!”
“You lie in your throat,” said Gabriel, vehemently. “I did but rescue her from your fiendish trap.”
“What!” cried Lord Harry, thickly. “Do you give the Colonel the lie direct, you Puritan dog? Take that!”
And he dealt Gabriel a blow on the head which for a minute half stunned him.
Norton drew his friend back.
“Hold your peace, Harry,” he said. “You spoil sport. I understand how to bait this traitor.”