“I protest to Heaven, David, I believe you're deranged! Do you the least know what you are saying?”
“Perfectly. Now, my dear Reginald, let us look at the matter quietly. The girl does not like him; she would not marry him, and never will; she has grown to hate him; his own conduct has made her despise and detest him; and she's not the kind of girl who would marry for a mere title. She has unalterably made up her mind; and these are not times when you can lock a young lady into her room, and starve her into compliance; and Alice is a spirited girl—all the women of our family were. You're no goose like Wynderbroke—you only need to know that the girl has quite made up her mind, or her heart, or her hatred, or whatever it is, and she won't marry him. It is as well he should know it at first, as at last; and I don't think, if he were a gentleman, peer though he be, he would have been in this house to-night. He counted on his title: he was too sure. I am very proud of Alice. And now he can't bear the mortification—having, like a fool, disclosed his suit to others before it had succeeded—of letting the world know he has been refused; and to this petty vanity he would sacrifice Alice, and prevail on you, if he could, to bully her into accepting him, a plan in which, if he perseveres, I have told him he shall, besides failing ridiculously, give me a meeting; for I will make it a personal quarrel with him.”
Sir Reginald sat in his chair, looking very white and wicked, with his eyes gleaming fire on his brother. He opened his mouth once or twice, to speak, but only drew a short breath at each attempt.
David Arden rather wondered that his brother took all this so quietly. If he had observed him a little more closely, he would have seen that his hands were trembling, and perceived also that he had tried repeatedly to speak, and that either voice or articulation failed him. On a sudden he recovered, and regardless of his gout started to his feet, and limped along the floor, exclaiming,—
“Help us—help us—God help us! What's this? My—my—oh, my God! It's very bad!” He was stumping round and round the table, near which he had sat, and restlessly shoving the pamphlets and books hither and thither as he went. “What have I done to earn this curse?—was ever mortal so pursued? The last thing, this was; now all's gone—quite gone—it's over, quite. They've done it—they've done it. Bravo! bravi tutti! brava! All—all, and everything gone! To think of her—only to think of her! She was my pet.” (And in his bleak, trembling voice, he cried a horrid curse at her.) “I tell you,” he screamed, dashing his hand on the table, at the other end of which he had arrested his monotonous shuffle round it, when his brother caught suddenly his vacant eye, “you think, because I'm down in the world, and you are prosperous, that you can do as you like. If I was where I should be, you daren't. I'll have her back, Sir. I'll have the police with you. I'll—I'll indict you—it's a police-office affair. They'll take her through the streets. Where's the wretch like her? I charge her—let them take her by the shoulder. And my son, Richard—to think of him!—the cursed puppy!—his post obit! One foot in the grave, have I? No, I'm not so near smoked out as you take me—I've a long time for it—I've a long life. I'll live to see him broken—without a coat to his back—you villanous, swindling dandy, and I'll——”
His voice got husky, and he struck his thin fist on the table, and clung to it, and the room was suddenly silent.
David Arden rang the bell violently, and got his arm round his brother, who shook himself feebly, and shrugged, as if he disdained and hated that support.
In came Crozier, who looked aghast, but wheeled his easy-chair close to where he stood, and between them they got him into it, trembling from head to foot.
Martha Tansey came in and lent her aid, and beckoning her to the door, David Arden asked her if she thought him very ill.
“I 'a' seen him just so a dozen times over. He'll be well enough, soon, and if ye knew him as weel in they takins, ye'd ho'd wi' me, there's nothing more than common in't; he's a bit teathy and short-waisted, and always was, and that's how he works himself into them fits.”