"Give him his sword!" I cried, passionately. "I cannot breathe while he draws breath! Give him his sword, or I will slay him with naked hands!"
"No!" roared Foxcroft, hurling me back.
Butler scowled at the lawyer; Foxcroft scowled at him, and placed his heavy shoe on the fallen sword. Then he suddenly stooped, seized the gilded hilt, and snapped the blade in two, casting the fragments from him in contempt.
"The sword of a scoundrel," he said; "the sword of a petty malefactor—a pitiful forger—"
"Liar!" shrieked Butler, springing at him. Mount flung the maddened man into a chair, where he lay, white and panting, staring at Foxcroft, who now stood by the table, coolly examining a packet of documents.
"It is all here," he said—"the story of two cheap dabblers in petty crime—Sir John Johnson and Mr. Walter Butler—how they did conspire to steal from Miss Warren her wealth, her fair fame, and the very name God gave her. A shameful story, gentlemen, but true on the word of an honourable man."
"Lies!" muttered Butler, between ashen lips. His cheeks became loose and horrible; his lips shrivelled up above his teeth. Foxcroft turned to me, purple with passion.
"Sir William Johnson, your honourable kinsman, left Miss Warren property in his will. Sir John found, in the same box which held the will, a packet of documents and letters addressed to Sir William, apparently proving that Miss Warren was the child of a certain lady who had left her husband to follow the fortunes of Captain Warren—her child by her own husband, Cade Renard, a gentleman of Cambridge."
"The Weasel!" burst out Jack Mount.
"But she is not, sir!" cried Foxcroft, turning on Mount. "She is Captain Warren's own child; I journeyed to England and proved it; I have papers here in my pocket to prove it!" he said, slapping the flaps of his brass-buttoned coat. "It was a lie from beginning to end; the letters supposed to have been written to Sir William by Sir Peter Warren were forged; the documents supposed to have been unearthed from the flooring in the captain's cabin of his Majesty's ship Leda were forged. I can prove it! I can prove that Walter Butler was the forger! I can prove that Sir John Johnson knew it! And to that end Sir John and Captain Butler conspired to make her believe herself to be the child of a half-crazed forest-runner who had been besetting Sir John with his mad importunities, calling himself Cade Renard, and vowing that Miss Warren was his own child!"