Beauchamp's hand sprang to the hilt of his dirk. Alec laughed with bitter contempt.
"Pooh!" he said; "even you will not say I am a coward. Do if you dare!"
After her first startled cry, Kate had stood staring and trembling. Beauchamp's presence of mind returned. He thrust his half-drawn dirk into its sheath, and with a curl of the scarred lip, said coldly—
"Eaves-dropping."
"Lying," retorted Alec.
"Well, I must say," returned Beauchamp, assuming his most polished tone, "that this kind of conversation is at least unusual in the presence of a lady."
Without making him any reply, Alec turned to Kate.
"Kate," he said, "I swear to you that I struck him only after fair warning, after insult to myself, and insult to the dead. He did not know that I was able to give him the chastisement he deserved."
I doubt if Kate heard any of this speech. She had been leaning against a book-case, and from it she now slipped sideways to the floor.
"You brute!" said Beauchamp. "You will answer to me for this."