"So—it was—you?" he murmured, with a pause between the words. "Oh, was ever anything so damnably contrary! To think that I should hunt her into your very arms! To think that of all men in the world it should be you to play the squire of dames!" And he laughed again, but, as he did so, the stout riding-whip snapped in his hands like a straw. He glanced down at the broken pieces, and from them to me. "You see, I am rather strong in the hands, cousin," said he, shaking his head, "but I was not—quite strong enough, last time we met, though, to be sure, as you say, it was very dark. Had I known it was worthy Cousin Peter's throat I grasped, I think I might have squeezed it just—a little—tighter."
"Sir," said I, shaking my head, "I really don't think you could have done it."
"Yes," he sighed, tossing his broken whip into a corner. "Yes, I think so—you see, I mistook you for merely an interfering country bumpkin—"
"Yes," I nodded, "while I, on the other hand, took you for a fine gentleman nobly intent on the ruin of an unfortunate, friendless girl, whose poverty would seem to make her an easy victim—"
"In which it appears you were as much mistaken as I, Cousin Peter."
Here he glanced at me with a sudden keenness.
"Indeed?"
"Why, surely," said he, "surely you must know—" He paused to flick a speck of soot from his knee, and then continued: "Did she tell you nothing of—herself?"
"Very little beside her name."
"Ah! she told you her name, then?"
"Yes, she told me her name."