“YOU’LL KNOW WHO WHEN I CLAIM THE TIN.”
“P.S.—If you make a heavy purse out of the business, I shall expect ten per cent, on all beyond five hundred pounds.”
As Barrington ceased reading, D’Almayne observed, coolly—
“Exactly as I expected—an anonymous letter, supposed to be mine on the word of a blackguard horsedealer (who probably wrote it himself to conceal his own rascality), and eagerly caught at by this fiery young gentleman, who, anxious to prove that he is out of leading-strings, gladly seeks any pretext for quarrelling with one to whom his Lordship has a painful consciousness that he appears no more a hero than to his valet-de-chambre. Tirrett declares that I wrote this letter, I say I did no such thing; there is no proof about the matter, it is simply a question of assertion—Tirrett’s word against mine. I leave it to the gentlemen present to say which is most worthy of credit.”
“Allow me to mention one small circumstance which may assist them to arrive at a just decision,” interposed Lord Alfred, quietly; “I have a perfect recollection of Mr. D’Almayne’s writing a note, much resembling the one in question, at my lodgings, on the morning before he left England. If I am right in my conjecture, the date would be the 5th of last month, and the postmark Pall Mall; may I trouble you to ascertain the point, Mr. Barrington?”
“Right in both respects,” was the unhesitating reply. “Moreover, here is a coronet and the initials A. C. stamped on the paper, a corroboration which quite satisfies my mind on the subject.”
L’Almayne glanced round, and read his sentence on the faces which surrounded him—faces of men, who, in the insolence of his false position, he had made to feel the lash of his covert sarcasm. Amongst the many there he could not discern one friend. But his self-possession did not forsake him.
“Of course, all against me,” he said; then turning to Lord Alfred, he continued—“Your Lordship once expressed a doubt as to the social value of a title, you now, I should imagine, perceive your error: for the rest, the letter is an impudent forgery, and the accusation false; but until I can prove the whole story the clumsy fabrication I know it to be, I shall leave the matter where it stands, unless”—and he glanced round the circle with a savage light in his cold, grey eyes, which no one cared to meet—“unless any gentleman feels inclined to make a personal affair of it, in which case I shall have much pleasure in affording him the satisfaction he requires.”
No one appearing desirous of improving the occasion as D’Almayne had suggested, the baffled intriguer stalked out of the room, with a look of scornful indifference on his features, and rage and hatred burning in his breast.