"You?—you come between?" I scoffed. "You are all kinds of a knave, Sir Francis, but your worst enemy never accused you of being a fool!"
There was a look in his eyes that I could never fathom.
"You are bitter hard, John Ireton—bitter and savage and unforgiving. You knew the wild blade of a half-score years ago, and now you'd make the grown man pay scot and lot for that same youngster's misdeeds. Have you never a touch of human kindliness in you?"
To know how this affected me you must turn back to that place where I have tried to picture out this man for you. I said he had a gift to turn a woman's head or touch her heart. I should have said that he could use this gift at will on any one. For the moment I forgot his cool disposal of me in the talk with Captain Stuart; forgot how he had lied to make me out a spy and so had brought me to this pass.
So I could only say: "You killed my friend, Frank Falconnet, and—"
"Tush!" said he. "That quarrel died nine years ago. Your reviving of it now is but a mask."
"For what?" I asked.
"For your just resentment in sweet Margery's behalf. Believe it or not, as you like, but I could love you for that blow you gave me, John Ireton. I had been losing cursedly at cards that day, and mine host's wine had a dash of usquebaugh in it, I dare swear. At any rate, I knew not what it was I said till Tybee said it over for me."
"But the next morning you took a cur's advantage of me on this very spot and ran me through," I countered.
"Name it what you will and let it go at that. There was murder in your eye, and you are the better swordsman. You put me upon it for my life, and when you gave me leave, I did not kill you, as I might."