With a wild cry, Santley clutched Haldane; but his hold was so weak, so tremulous, that the other’s strong frame scarcely shook.
“You shall not escape,” cried the minister. “Coward! murderer! I will deliver you up to justice!”
“Pshaw!”
With a powerful movement, Haldane disengaged himself, and his opponent fell back into the room. Santley was not a strong man, and just then he seemed positively helpless; nor would he at any time have been a match for the square-built, broad-shouldered master of Foxglove Manor.
“Hands off, if you please,” said Haldane. “If it comes to a trial of strength, I shall crush your reverend carcase like an egg. Another man, in my position, would have wrung your neck long ago. Do you know why I have been so gentle with you?”
Santley gazed at him vacantly, and did not speak.
“Because I prefer to prolong your agony as long as possible, and to let the world know of what stuff its priests are made.”
“You are a murderer,” gasped Santley again, clutching at him, but with the feeble grasp of a sick child. “You are a murderer, on your own confession. I tell you, I will give you up.”
“Après?” said Haldane, coolly.
“You have destroyed your wife—the purest and best woman God ever made. She was innocent of all wrong. She was an angel married to a devil, that was all.”