"By running you through the liver, if need be," replied Henry Woodhall; "I tell you, Robert, that as you two stand just now, you with your vices and Ralph with his poverty, I would rather see him Margaret's husband than you."
Robert Woodhall fixed his eyes full upon his cousin's face, and contemplated him for a moment or two in silence, while a dark, malignant smile gradually came upon his lip. "You love hypocrites, I think, Henry?" he said, at length.
"No. I hate them," replied the other, sharply.
"You can not say that I have any hypocrisy," rejoined his cousin; "all that I do, be it bad or good, is open, in the face of day. I am frank and bold at least. But are you sure that this young lad, on whom you pin your faith, has not learned hypocrisy at Cambridge as well as Greek and Latin? Are you sure that his heart is not as mercenary as a money-lender's? that his conduct is not as foul and corrupt as a street prostitute's? that his hypocrisy is not as great as a non-juring preacher's?"
"Pooh, pooh!" said Henry Woodhall, "I have known him from infancy: we have been boys--have grown up men together. We have been like brothers, and his thoughts are as common to me as to himself."
Still that same dark smile hung upon the lips of Robert Woodhall as he listened.
There was something triumphant in it, a sort of cool self-confidence, which conveyed, before he even spoke, the idea that he possessed the means of overthrowing all the arguments opposed to him in a moment.
"Well," he said, "let us look a little at Mr. Ralph's real conduct, and see whether it be such as you quite approve. Men have singular opinions on these subjects. Your own are somewhat curious; and perhaps you may admire all this. First, taking advantage of your father's hospitality and kindness, he makes love to Margaret, and wins her heart; then--"
"Stay, stay!" cried his cousin; "of that we have no proof but your own jealousy; and, if there be any thing between them, it is more than probable that they have mutually grown up to love each other, and then some casual word or accidental circumstance has betrayed the secret of each breast to the other. I can not blame him, Robert. Margaret is a little angel, and any man might well love her. But still, I say, we have no proof of this but your jealousy."
"My jealousy! Henry," replied Robert, with a sneer which he could not repress, though it injured his own cause; "I have no jealousy, good cousin. I am not in the predicament. However, even were it so, that is a matter very easily settled. Ask Margaret herself. Press her closely, and either by her looks or words you will come at the truth. But, for the moment, let us suppose that it is so; I would not blame him either, were there any real love in the case; for, though I do not know much of the heroic passion, yet I have heard that it sometimes drives men mad. But if there has been no real love on his part; if he has been moved only by mercenary motives; if he has been ready at any moment to sacrifice her when he saw the prospect of greater fortune than her own; if, the moment he has seen this young Baroness Danvers, he has cast off all thought of Margaret, and paraded their intimacy openly, in order that the poor girl might be satisfied at once of his treachery; if he has pursued Lady Danvers the more eagerly because the world gave out that you were to have her hand, would you think this honest, honorable, kind in your generous, excellent cousin Ralph?"