“I am quite calm, Mr Elstree,” he said; “but this man must leave the house at once.”
“Calm!” shouted Philip Norton, mad almost with rage. “Thief! robber! you have stolen her from me. She is mine—my wife—sworn to be mine; and you, amongst you, have made her false to her vows.”
“Mr Norton,” said Sir Murray, “are you a gentleman?”
“How dare you—you dog—ask me that?”
“Leave this house, then; and I will meet you at any future time, should you, in your cooler moments, wish it. I did intend to leave for the Continent this afternoon; but I will stay. I pity you—upon my soul, I do—but you must know that no one is to blame. You are, or ought to be, aware that the Gazette published your death nearly four years ago, and that you have been truly mourned for. No one has been faithless, but your memory has been respected as well as cherished. You have come in a strange and mad way; but we are ready to overlook all that, as due to the excitement and bitterness of your feelings. I now ask you, as a gentleman, for the sake of her parents, for your own sake—for the sake of my wife—to leave here quietly, and to try to look calmly upon the present state of affairs. I have done.”
As Sir Murray ceased speaking he suffered his hand to fall from Norton’s throat, and stood calmly facing him, gazing into the other’s fierce, wild eyes unblenched, while, as if the calm words of reason had forced themselves to his heart, he, too, allowed his hands to fall, and as the fierce rage seemed to fade out of his countenance, a strange shiver passed through his frame, and he looked in a pitiful, pleading way from face to face, as if seeking comfort, before speaking, in a cracked, hollow voice:
“Too late!—too late! But no, not yet! You,” he exclaimed, turning to Sir Murray, “you will be generous. You will waive this claim. See here!” he cried excitedly, as with outstretched hands he pleaded to the husband: “I was cut down, as you know, in hard fight, and I woke to find myself a prisoner amongst the hill tribes; and ever since, for what has seemed a life-time, I have been held a slave, a captive—beaten, starved, ill-used in every conceivable way; but look here!” he cried, tearing from his breast a little leather purse, and opening it. “See here!” he cried, taking out a few dry flower-stalks: “her flowers, given me when, young and ardent, we plighted troth—forget-me-nots; true blue—and we swore to live one for the other. Man! man! those few withered blossoms have been life to me when, cut and bruised, I could have gladly lain down beneath the hot Indian sun and gasped out my last breath. I believe my captors tried to kill me with ill-usage; but I said I would not die—I would live to look once more upon her face, even though it were to breathe my last at her feet. And now—now, after hardships that would make your blood run cold, I escape, and reach home, what do I find? Her, worse than dead—worse than dead! But no! it cannot be so. You, sir—I ask you humbly—I ask you as a supplicant—forgive my mad words, and tell me that you waive your claim. You will be generous towards us; the law will do the rest. You, sir,” he cried, turning to the Rector, “plead with me. I am no beggar. I come back to find myself rich. Help me, for poor Marion’s sake! Do not condemn her to a life that must be only such a captivity as mine! Am I right? You will both be generous, and this horrid dream of despair is at an end!”
He advanced a step nearer to Sir Murray; but the latter turned from him.
“Speak to him, sir,” he said to the Rector. “It will be better that I should go.”
Sir Murray’s head was bent as he left the room, not daring to trust himself to gaze again upon the wild, appealing face turned towards him; while, as the door closed, Philip Norton turned to the Rector, who, poor man, stood wringing his hands, hardly knowing what to do or say. But the next moment, with a groan of despair, Philip Norton let his head drop upon his breast, for he read his sentence in the old man’s eyes. But again, with an effort, he roused himself, and caught Ada’s hands in his, sending a wild thrill through the poor girl’s frame, as she averted her head, and listened, with beating heart, to his words.