"I thought it was Elinor!"
"Luckily you were mistaken," returned Mr. Chesleigh, quickly recovering his wits. "This rencontre is most opportune for me, sir. I have wished to see you."
He stepped into the room as he spoke, and boldly confronted the villain, who glared at him with a mixture of defiance and dismay.
"You wished to see me. I feel flattered," he said, with an attempt at cutting sarcasm. "May I ask why?"
There was a moment's silence while Bertram Chesleigh rapidly reviewed the situation in his mind. Then he spoke:
"You may ask, and I may answer," he said. "Mr. Glenalvan, I might heap the bitterest reproach upon your head, if by so doing the cruel work of your life might be undone. But the past is past. My wife is dead, and no reproaches and no lamentations can bring her back to me. But there is one issue between you and me. I have taken up my dead wife's quest where she left it. I demand that you shall tell me where to find my little Golden's deeply-wronged mother."
The dark face before him whitened to the awful pallor of death, the man's eyes blazed luridly, his hands were clenched as they hung at his sides.
"What if I refuse to answer your question?" he inquired, in a low, tense voice.
"I will find means to force you to confession," Bertram Chesleigh replied, unhesitatingly.
"I defy you to do so," John Glenalvan replied, with an imprecation. "I am not afraid of you."