"I have," said Harry evenly.
Hugh's glance, that had been wavering about the neat interior, returned to Harry, and knowledge and anger leaped into it. "So it was you, was it? You are the one who has been trying his hand as a claim-jumper!" He lurched toward the table and leaned upon it. "I've always heard that the devil took care of his own. The runaway rector stumbles on my manor, and with his usual luck—'Satan's luck' we called it at college—steps in just in time to strike it rich!"
He stretched his hand suddenly and caught a tiny object that glittered against Harry's coat—the little gold cross, which the other had tied to his watch-guard. The thong snapped and Hugh sent the pendant rattling across the doorway.
"You were something of a howling swell as a parson," he said insolently, "but you don't need the jewelry now!"
Harry Sanderson's eyes had not left Hugh's face; he was thinking swiftly. The bolt from the blue had been so recent that this sudden apparition seemed a natural concomitant of the situation. Only the problem was no longer imminent; it was upon him. Jessica was not for him—he had accepted that. Though the clock might not turn backward, this man must stand between them. Yet his presence now in the predicament was intolerable. This drunken, criminal maligner had it in his power to precipitate the climax for her in a coarse and brutal exposé. Hugh had no idea of the true tangle, else he had not been seen in the town. But if not to-night, then to-morrow! Harry's heart turned cold within him. If he could eliminate Hugh from the problem till he could see his way!
"Well," said Hugh with a sneer, "what have you got to say?"
Harry rose slowly and pushed the door shut. "When we last met," he said, "what you most wanted was to leave the country."
"I changed my mind," retorted Hugh. "I've got a right to do that, I suppose. I've come back now to get what is mine, and I'll have it, too!" He rapped the table with his knuckles.
Hugh had no recollection now of past generosities. His selfish materialism saw only money that might be his. "I know all about the strike," he went on, "and there's no green in my eye!"