“I am not bound to answer you,” shouted Pepperill in anger, vexation, and fear, aggravated by the coolness with which Quarm answered him.
“Yes, you are. I have ties of blood, and ties of affection, your bad temper can’t snap. I ask, where is my daughter?”
“Gone back to the moor.”
“That can’t be—alone.”
“She is not alone.”
“Is Zerah with her?”
“No, she is not; Zerah is at Teignmouth, gone there to get me out of one of the difficulties into which you have plunged me.”
“I—I got you into difficulties? I am always showing you rope’s-ends by which you may crawl out.”
“Who else but yourself has now put me in such an upsetment that I do not know under what stone to look for money; that I’m threatened with legal proceedings; that the bailiffs are on the way to my house?”
“It is your own doing, not mine. Who threatens you?”