“Good-bye,” he said, as he bent down and softly kissed her forehead. Then she walked firmly from the room.
“Brave girl!” said Garstang; “she will be a match for you and your plans now, James Wilton.”
“Will you go, sir?” roared the other.
“Yes, I will go. Then it is to be war between us, is it?”
“What you like; I’m reckless now; but you can’t interfere with me there.”
“No, and I will not trample upon a worm when it is down. I shall take no petty revenge, and you dare not persecute that poor girl. Good-bye to you both, and may this be a lesson to you and your foolish wife. As for you, you cur, if I hear that you have insulted your cousin again—a girl that any one with the slightest pretension to being a man would have looked upon as a sister—law or no law, I’ll come down and thrash you within an inch of your life. I’m a strong man yet, as you know.”
He turned and walked proudly out of the room; and as soon as his step had ceased to ring on the oaken floor of the hall Wilton turned savagely upon his son, where he lay upon the thick Turkey carpet, and roared:
“Get up!”
Mrs Wilton shrieked and caught at her husband’s leg, but in vain, for he delivered a tremendous kick at the prostrate youth, which brought him to his senses with a yell.
“What are you doing?” he roared.