“Certainly, Mr. Vivian, it is your right, and justice shall be meted out to you. But this distinct denial, so unexpected, what does it mean?”
“This, Mr. Wilton,” returned Vivian, unable to control the excitement under which every nerve quivered; “that while acknowledging a deep and passionate love for your daughter, Miss Wilton, I scornfully and indignantly repudiate the infamous charge of having surreptitiously or insidiously attempted to win her heart. I have, sir, so instinctive, so full a perception of her innocence and purity—of the natural delicacy of the direction of her mind—that a purpose so base would never suggest itself to me. Further, sir, I consider the presumption that Miss Wilton would lend an ear to such incitement an insult to her; and, but for your presence, I would have lashed, like a hound, the paltry knave who is the author of the insult and of the lie!”
“Wilton, Wilton, I cannot submit to this outrage!” roared Colonel Mires, once more starting to his feet and making a dash at Hal; but Mark Wilton sprang forward and stayed him. He forced him back to the spot where he had been seated.
“I know not who you are, or under what circumstances you are here,” he said, sternly, to him, “but I do know Mr. Vivian, and I have the fullest faith in his honour. I know, too, by what has just passed, that you have been using the name of my sister too freely and too impertinently for my satisfaction. Now you must not attempt here, by blustering or playing the part of a bully, to seek to escape from your position. You must either prove what you have gone so far as to assert, or you must look to be expelled hence by an operation more summary than dignified.”
“Unhand me,” cried Mires, his lips purple with passion. “Mr. Wilton, as your guest, I claim to be treated with propriety and respect.”
Mr. Wilton called impetuously to his son to return to his side, and suggested to Colonel Mires that his own intemperate movement had caused Mark’s interference. He then turned to Hal, and said—
“Mr. Vivian, you register a denial and make an admission in a breath; are you prepared upon your honour to state that you have had no clandestine meeting with my daughter, at any period of your acquaintance?”
“I am.”
“How?” almost screamed Mires, “will you dare to utter a falsehood so easily and so clearly to be disproved?”
“By whom?” asked Hal, contemptuously.