“Who—who wrote to you?” he cried.
“There is no need to hide his name. Your dearest friend, Mr Pacey.”
“The wretched meddler!”
“The true, honest gentleman you have always said he was, Armstrong. I have come from him now.”
“The cowardly hound!” muttered Dale.
“No; your truest and best friend. He wrote to me for your sake and mine, Armstrong, and I have come.”
“What for?—to treat me with scorn and contempt?” he cried angrily, snatching at a chance to speak; “to tell me that all is over between us? Why have you not brought your brother with you, to horsewhip me and add his insults to your upbraidings?”
“Michael is here,”—Dale started, and looked with a coward’s glance at the door—“he is in London, but it was not his duty to come to the man who is my betrothed. I came alone to ask you—if it is all true?”
He drew a hoarse breath, and then forced himself to speak brutally, to hide the shame and agony he felt.
“Yes,” he said roughly; “it is all true.”