Now at this moment, even as he sank on his knees, Barnabas again heard a cry, but nearer now and with the rustle of flying draperies, and, glancing up, saw Cleone running towards them.
"Cleone!" he cried, and sprang to his feet.
"You—struck him!" she panted.
"I—yes, I—had to! But indeed he isn't much hurt—" But Cleone was down upon her knees, had lifted Barrymaine's head to her bosom and was wiping the blood from his pale face with her handkerchief.
"Cleone," said Barnabas, humbly, "I—indeed I—couldn't help it. Oh, Cleone—look up!" Yet, while he spoke, there came a rustling of leaves near by and glancing thither, he saw Mr. Chichester surveying them, smiling and debonair, and, striding forward, Barnabas confronted him with scowling brow and fierce, menacing eyes.
"Rogue!" said he, his lips curling, "Rascal!"
"Ah!" nodded Mr. Chichester gently, "you have a pistol there, I see!"
"Your despicable villainy is known!" said Barnabas. "Ha!—smile if you will, but while you knelt, pistol in hand, in the barn there, had you troubled to look in the loft above your head you might have murdered me, and none the wiser. As it is, I am alive, to strip you of your heritage, and you still owe me twenty thousand guineas. Pah! keep them to help you from the country, for I swear you shall be hounded from every club in London; men shall know you for what you are. Now go, before you tempt me to strangle you for a nauseous beast. Go, I say!"
Smiling still, but with a devil looking from his narrowed eyes, Mr. Chichester slowly viewed Barnabas from head to foot, and, turning, strolled away, swinging his tasselled walking cane as he went, with Barnabas close behind him, pistol in hand, even as they had once walked months before.
Now at this moment it was that Cleone, yet kneeling beside Barrymaine, chanced to espy a crumpled piece of paper that lay within a yard of her, and thus, half unwitingly, she reached out and took it up, glanced at it with vague eyes, then started, and knitting her black brows, read these words: