“Yes, I know, I know,” said Bayle.
“And yet, old idiot that I am, I go there for the sake of these women, and bear it all—I, whom people call a gentleman, I go there and am civil to the scoundrel who robbed me, and put up with his insolence and his scowls. But I’m his master still. He dare not turn upon me. I can make him quail when I like. Bayle, old fellow,” he cried, with a satisfied chuckle, “how the scoundrel would like to give me a dose!”
Bayle sat down with his brow full of the lines of care.
“I’m not like you,” continued Sir Gordon, whom the relation of his troubles seemed to relieve, “I won’t be driven away. I think you were wrong.”
“No,” said Bayle quietly, “it was causing her pain. It was plain enough that in his sordid mind my presence was a greater injury than yours. He was wearing her life away, and I thought it better that our intimacy should grow less and less.”
“But, my boy, that’s where you were wrong. Bad as the scoundrel is, he could never have had a jealous thought of that saint—there, don’t call me irreverent—I say it again, that saint of a woman.”
“Oh, no, I can’t think that myself,” said Bayle, “but my presence was a standing reproach to him.”
“How could it be more than mine?”
“You are different. He always hated me from the first time we met at King’s Castor.”
“I believe he did,” said Sir Gordon warmly; “but see how he detests the sight of me.”