"And if I have, what is that to you?"
He was scarcely master of himself now, or he would not have allowed the conversation to drift into such a channel. But the man angered him almost beyond words, all the more so because he was mixed up in the affair, of which he felt ashamed.
"You admit it, then. All this teetotalism, this tone of moral earnestness which you have introduced into your speeches—it's all to win your wager."
"And if it is!" he cried. "Have I ever pretended to believe in any of the whining sentimentality of the world? Have I not all along insisted that everything is a matter of price!"
He had meant to have said exactly opposite to this when he saw these men, but they had, in spite of himself, aroused him to a kind of unreasoning anger.
"I think Miss Castlemaine ought to know," said Sprague.
"Perhaps you mean to tell her?" he asked.
"I have thought of it, certainly."
"Then let me tell you this, you fellows," he said, "if ever you do, I'll crush you, as I would crush an empty egg-shell. I'll make life a hell for you. I mean it! I have no fear of Winfield. He makes no profession of religion, and therefore will act squarely; but I say this to you two fellows—you, Sprague, and Purvis—if ever Miss Castlemaine hears of it, I know it will come from one of you two. No one else knows of it, and I shall quickly find out which of you two has told her. Well, I tell you this, no lost soul in the hell about which you preach to sinners shall suffer as you shall suffer."
He had taken the wrong line, and he knew it, yet he did not think, at that time, of a way in which he could make them feel what he felt. His pride forbade him telling them that he was really in earnest now, and that he was ashamed of the compact they had made. He did try to bring himself to it; but to go to Sprague and Purvis and to tell them that he really loved Miss Castlemaine, and to ask them to refrain from mentioning what had passed between them, was too much. Had they been men of a different order, he might have done it; but after the way he had regarded them, after he had laughed to scorn their religious notions, and their professed faith in women, he could not. He would maintain his old character, and he would make them fear to divulge the secret, which had now become the great fear of his life.