“I—I entreat you not to speak to me like that, sir,” he said. “I have but done my duty.”
Then the other rose from his chair, and his eyes were stern and bright again and his lips tight.
“Your duty, sir, seems a strange matter, when it leads you to break into a friend’s house, assault him and his servants and his guests, and destroy his furniture, in search of a supposed priest whom you have never even seen. Now, sir, if this matter comes to her Grace’s ears, I will not answer for the consequences; for you know Mistress Corbet, her lady-in-waiting, is one of my guests.—And, speaking of that, where are my guests?”
“The two ladies, Mr. Buxton, are safe and sound upstairs, I assure you.”
The magistrate’s voice was trembling.
“Well, sir, I have one condition to offer you. Either you and your men withdraw within half an hour from my house and grounds, and leave me and my two guests to ourselves, or else I lay the whole matter, through Mistress Corbet, before her Grace.” Mr. Buxton beat his hand once on the table as he ended, and looked with a contemptuous inquiry at the magistrate.
But the worm writhed up at the heel.
“How can you talk like this, sir,” he burst out, “as if you had but two guests?”
“Two guests? I do not understand you. How should there be more?”
“Then for whom are the four places laid at table?” he answered indignantly.