“Silence, girl! I will have this matter sifted to the bottom; and unless you can satisfy me as to what you have done with the child—my child—which I am paying you extravagantly for the care of, you will both leave the island without delay.”
Both father and daughter were for the moment struck dumb by this menace. Then they looked at each other furtively, and appearing to derive confidence from that exchange of glances, stood up to him more boldly than before.
Pierre took the initiative.
“Brave words, monsieur!” said he, “but I think you will be glad to recall them presently. Do you forget what we know?”
His voice went up shrilly on the last word, but Mr Bayre stood firm.
“You know nothing that can affect me, your master,” he retorted sharply, “but a great deal that can affect yourselves. I don’t mean to take this deception of yours quietly, and so I tell you.”
“And how will you take it when I spread in the islands the story of the last few months?” asked Pierre, not, however, with quite so much assurance as before; for it was clear that he began to have an uneasy feeling that his power over his master was not so great as he had supposed.
Old Mr Bayre laughed harshly and snapped his fingers.
“Take it!” echoed he. “I shall take it as everybody else will take it, as the silly story of a couple of silly peasants who got turned out of their comfortable berth for practising a fraud upon their master, and who have invented a lot of idle tales in the vain hope of injuring him.”
The consternation which this turning of the tables produced upon the Vazons was for the moment overpowering. Marie uttered a moan of horror, while Pierre grew livid with disappointed malice.