"Her Grace will be home almost as soon as you are--when you have given me the money which I perceive you have all ready for me in that scarcely elegant-looking canvas bag." He shrugged his shoulders quite gracefully. "Unfortunately, in these matters one has no choice--one is forced to ask for gold."
"And suppose, instead of giving you what is in this canvas bag, I take you by the throat and choke the life right out of you?"
"Or suppose," amended Mr. Dacre, "that you do better, and commend this gentleman to the tender mercies of the first policeman we encounter."
The stranger turned to Mr. Dacre. He condescended to become conscious of his presence.
"Is this gentleman your Grace's friend? Ah--Mr. Dacre, I perceive! I have the honour of knowing Mr. Dacre, although, possibly, I am unknown to him."
"You were--until this moment."
With an airy little laugh the stranger returned to the Duke. He brushed an invisible speck of dust off the sleeve of his coat.
"As has been intimated in that infamous letter, his Grace is at perfect liberty to give me into custody--why not? Only"--he said it with his boyish smile--"if a particular communication is not received from me in certain quarters within a certain time, the Duchess of Datchet's beautiful white arm will be hacked off at the shoulder."
"You hound!"
The Duke would have taken the stranger by the throat, and have done his best to choke the life right out of him then and there, if Mr. Dacre had not intervened.