But Faxon was too quick for him. He sprang to one side, caught the uplifted arm with a grip that almost paralyzed it, and, wrenching the dangerous missile—which fortunately remained intact, the plant having become root-bound in the pot—from his grasp, calmly replaced it where it belonged.
"Mr. Wentworth, this is the second time that you have made a rash attempt upon my life," he quietly observed. "I advise you never to repeat it, and you will remember that Miss Heatherford is my promised wife, and I shall not tolerate anything that verges upon a recurrence of what has just taken place."
He paused a moment, while a softer expression swept over his fine face.
"Wentworth, what ails you?" he continued in a more friendly tone. "What has made you so strangely antagonistic toward me all these years? I fail to understand it. It began away back during our first term in college; what caused it? Where is your manliness that you could cherish a grudge for so long? Believe me, I never had the slightest personal ill-will against you, and certainly you must have been in a very uncomfortable frame of mind most of this time. If I have unconsciously done you any wrong in the past, I should be very glad to be told of it."
Again he paused, but Philip stood silent, with downcast eyes and a sullen frown upon his brow. Clifford saw that he was incorrigible, and, repressing a sigh of regret for a life so warped by selfishness, he observed:
"Possibly I am unwise in appealing to you in any such way; but I believe the day will yet come when you will regret some of these things."
He turned and went swiftly back the way he had come, while Philip watched him with a lowering brow and a look of hate in his eyes.
Suddenly a slight rustle caused him to turn and look behind him, when an exclamation of dismay escaped him, for, leaning against the tall vase, and pale as the snowy dress she wore, he saw Gertrude Athol standing not a dozen feet from him.
"Gertrude!" the young man faltered, for he knew from her manner that she must have overheard much of what had passed—how much he dared not think.
The sound of his voice acted like a shock of electricity upon her. She stood erect, swept into the path where he was, and confronted him.