"As pay for service which you have rendered me, or my family. I pay, we are at quits, and part forever." "You are not the only power in this world!" cried Kranitski; "not your will alone can open or close the doors of this house to me."
Darvid, so pale that even his thin lips did not seem to possess a drop of blood, took from a letter-case and showed Kranitski, between two fingers, a letter in a small elegant envelope, bearing the address of Pani Malvina Darvid.
The dark flush vanished from Kranitski without a trace; he became very pale and rested his hand on the arm of the chair; his eyes opened widely. Silence lasted some seconds; between those two men with faces as pale as linen hung the terror of a discovered secret. Darvid, with a voice so stifled that it was barely audible, was the first to speak.
"How this letter came into my hands we need not explain! Simply by chance. Such chances are very common, and they have in them only this good, that at times they put an end to deceit and—villainy!"
Kranitski, still very pale except that red spots were coming out on his forehead, looked very old all at once; he advanced some steps and stood before Darvid, the round table alone was between them. With stifled voice, but fixing his black, flashing eyes boldly on Darvid's face, he said:
"Deceit! villainy! those words are said easily! Do you not know that in early youth your wife was almost my betrothed?"
Darvid's lips were covered with irony, and he said:
"You deserted her at command of your mother, when she sent you to this capital in search of the golden fleece."
"And when you went to the ends of the earth for it," answered Kranitski, "you thought proper to place me to guard the woman whom I loved formerly. You considered yourself invincible, even when separated by hundreds or thousands of miles from her—"
"Let us stop this ridiculous discussion," said Darvid.