“Sir Robert,” he said, “you are too old to be called to account. You may say, therefore, what you please. But not—not if you are a gentleman—until this young lady has left the room.”
“This—young—lady!” Sir Robert gasped in an indescribable tone: and with the cane quivering in his grasp he looked from Vaughan to the girl.
“Yes,” Vaughan answered sternly. “That young lady! And do not let me hear you call her anything else, sir, for she has promised to be my wife.”
“You lie!” the baronet cried, the words leaping from his lips.
“Sir Robert!”
“My daughter—promised to be your wife! My—my——”
“Your daughter!”
“Hypocrite!” Sir Robert retorted, flinging the word at him. “You knew it! You knew it!”
“Your daughter?”
“Ay, that she was my daughter!”