Mona drew herself up, quivering. "You have no right to ask that."
"Perhaps not," raged the captain, with contempt, "because you love a man who is in love with a married woman, and——"
Shepworth ran forward, his face white and his eyes bright. "Silence!" he exclaimed, and took Jadby by the shoulders.
"I shall not be silent," shrieked the half-caste, becoming feminine and abusive in his towering passion. "You and your Mrs. Rover, who——"
What else he would have said neither Mona nor Prelice knew, for the barrister, becoming suddenly silent, after the manner of the angered white man, ran Jadby swiftly out of the room. The semi-Polynesian kicked and shrieked and swore, and even tried to bite. But Shepworth, with set teeth and grim eyes, forced him along the hall, and out of the front door. The next moment Jadby was lying on his back some distance away, with Shepworth blocking the door of the house he claimed.
"You devil!" yelled the half-caste, and he leaped up, to slip his hand behind him. The barrister flung himself down, while three shots rang out from the captain's derringer, then sprang to his feet on hearing no more. Apparently only three chambers had been loaded, for Shepworth, filled with wrath at this treachery, dared the worst, and ran blindly down the steps. Jadby flung away the still smoking weapon with an oath, and sped down the avenue, as though the fiend himself was after him. For some little distance Shepworth followed, until he lost him on the wide Downs, and then returned to the Grange, to meet Prelice coming down the avenue at top speed.
"Are you hurt, Ned?" shouted his friend.
"One of the bullets ripped my arm, but it's nothing to speak of," was Shepworth's reply. "Where's Mona?"
"She ran upstairs to see Mrs. Blexey. I'll send up and let her know that you are all right. I say, Ned, you have made a dangerous enemy."
"Oh, damn the danger," growled Shepworth, who was furious—"the low, mean, sulking hound. He insulted me before on account of Constance, and that was why we fought. He hadn't a revolver then, and I gave him a black eye, the brute."