"You know how you were all against me at Kerton," he began. "She did not care for me then, perhaps; but I would have been so patient and persevering that she must have loved me at last—only you never gave me fair play. Ah! do you think, because I was ugly and awkward, I had no chance?"
"No; but because she knew you were a coward," Guy said.
There was something grand in the utter indifference with which Bruce met the insult.
"You are wrong," he replied, coolly; "she did not know it. You all did, and reckoned on my being long-suffering and inoffensive. I saw, at last, what Forrester had done; yet I never guessed but that she would marry me. I trusted to her father and her own fears for keeping her straight. After marriage I would have tried still what great love and tenderness could do. I meant—never mind what I meant—it's all over now. I was nearly mad for a week after their flight. Then I became quite cool, and I said, 'I will kill him myself.' And so I did. Mind, I swear, Allan knew nothing of it till all was done. I thought I should be brave enough for that. Fifty times during the months that I tracked them, always changing my disguise, I nearly caught him alone; but each time I was balked. Wherever they went, I watched under their windows for the chance of his coming out; but I only saw—"
He gnashed his teeth, and rolled over and over in a paroxysm of jealous recollection. We guessed what he meant. Then he went on: "That night he sauntered backward and forward for some time. I thought he would not go far enough away, and I called to the devil to help me. He did; for, very soon, Forrester walked straight down the path. I crept after him till he had gone some hundred yards—my heart was beating so quickly that I could hardly breathe—then I ran forward and stood before him. I had taken off the black wig and beard that I always wore, and he knew me directly.
"'Mr. Bruce, I believe?' he said, raising his hat, just as if he had met me by appointment.
"'Yes,' I said. 'I have got you at last, as I wished.' I tried to speak as steadily as he had done; but, as the moment for action came near, my d——d cowardice made me stammer.
"'I am not invisible, as a rule,' he replied. 'You, or any friend of yours, might have found me long ago. You have been some time making up your mind. It's that unfortunate constitutional—caution, I suppose. Well, I'll meet you in Rome: it's more than you deserve.'
"'You'll fight me here—now,' I said.
"'I shall do nothing half so melodramatic,' he answered. 'I'll give you a fair chance on the ground; but, if you do not move out of my path now, I'll shoot you as I would any other disagreeable ruffian,' and he put his hand into his breast, where, I knew, he carried a pistol.