"Perhaps he would, if he did not know who he was: if he were disguised and did not appear as a naval officer. Such things have been. Yet it was not of him I thought."
"In Heaven's name, who then?"
"I fear 'tis you, Algernon, who are the dolt, the idiot, not I; or perhaps your own marriage made you forget that he too has lately entered into the holy bonds. He, too, has a wife, on board the Mignonne."
"My God!" Bufton exclaimed. "My God! You have thought of that! You--you whom but a moment ago I derided. Ay! ay! you are right, 'tis I who am the fool. Oh! what a vengeance. Oh! oh! On him, this haughty bully, this blustering sailor. But--oh no! no! no!" he cried, "it is impossible; it could never be. Get her out of an armed vessel and sell her into slavery in the colonies. It is impossible! Impossible!"
"Doubtless it is impossible," Granger agreed. "'Tis true. It is not to be thought on. I am a fool. Yet," he continued, again speaking very slowly and incisively, "she will get herself out of it, out of the Mignonne, ere long. He sails in a day or so, and then she, Ariadne--the heiress whom you by rights should have had--comes ashore with Anne and her mother, the woman Pottle. They cannot go in his craft."
"How do you know this?"
"Partly from what Barry said to-day, after he had got men from me; partly from encountering his wife by Stepney Church a day or so ago. She speaks kindly of you now, Bufton; protests she thinks often of you--and--would pass her life by your side if you would have her."
One must not write down the horrible exclamations that issued from Bufton's lips as he heard these words--the execrations on the woman who had entrapped and ruined him. Yet even when he was calmer, he continued wildly--
"'Thinks kindly of me!' 'Would pass her life by my side!' Ay! she shall think kindly of me--in the colonies. In the fields, where she shall toil till her heart bursts, till she drops dead. Lewis! Lewis! Can it be done? Can it? Can it? And you have power here; have men at your call. I will pay. I have two hundred guineas. Help me, and we will ensnare them both. Oh! what a vengeance on that wanton and on Barry! Help me, Lewis!"
"I will help you," the other said; "vengeance is sweet."