“What do you mean?”
“That I am in the house a paid servant, and must not allow anything mischievous to go on in it without acquainting my master.”
“You acknowledge, Mr. Grant, that you are neither more nor less than a paid servant, but you mistake your duty as such: I shall be happy to explain it to you.—You have nothing whatever to do with what goes on in the house; you have but to mind your work. I told you before, you are my brother’s tutor, not mine! To interfere with what I do, is nothing less than a piece of damned impertinence!”
“That impertinence, however, I intend to be guilty of the moment I can get audience of your father.”
“You will not, if I give you such explanation as satisfies you I have done the girl no harm, and mean honestly by her!” said Forgue in a confident, yet somewhat conciliatory tone.
“In any case,” returned Donal, “you having once promised, and then broken your promise, I shall without fail tell your father all I know.”
“And ruin her, and perhaps me too, for life?”
“The truth will ruin only those that ought to be ruined!” said Donal.
Forgue sprang upon him, and struck him a heavy blow between the eyes. He had been having lessons in boxing while in Edinburgh, and had confidence in himself. It was a well-planted blow, and Donal unprepared for it. He staggered against the wall, and for a moment could neither see nor think: all he knew was that there was something or other he had to attend to. His lordship, excusing himself perhaps on the ground of necessity, there being a girl in the case, would have struck him again; but Andrew threw himself between, and received the blow for him.
As Donal came to himself, he heard a groan from the ground, and looking, saw Andrew at his feet, and understood.