"Yes, he and his wife," the knight answered, noticing nothing in his obtuseness.
"You have been fooled, sir," I said bitterly. "My father you should have known, and for his wife, she is a bad, unscrupulous woman! Oh, the madness of it, to put my cousin into their hands!"
"What do you mean?" the knight cried, beginning to tremble. "Your father is a changed man, lad. He has come back to the old faith and in a dark hour too. He----"
"He is a hypocrite and a villain!" I retorted, stung almost to madness by this wound in my tenderest place; stung indeed beyond endurance. Why should I spare him, when to spare him was to sacrifice the innocent? Why should I pick my words, when my love was in danger? He had had no mercy and no pity. Why should I shrink from exposing him? Heaven had dealt with him patiently and given him life; and he did but abuse it. I could keep silence no longer, and told Sir Anthony all with a stinging tongue and in gibing words; even, at last, how my father had given me a hint of the very plan he had now carried out, of coming down to Coton, and goading his brother into some offense which might leave his estate at the mercy of the authorities.
"I did not think he meant it," I said bitterly. "But I might have known that the leopard does not change its spots. How you, who knew him years ago, and knew that he had plotted against you since, came to trust him again--to trust your daughter to him--passes my fancy!"
"He was my brother," the knight murmured, leaning white and stricken on my shoulder.
"And my father--heaven help us!" I rejoined.
CHAPTER XXV.
[IN HARBOR AT LAST.]
"We must first help ourselves," Sir Anthony answered sharply; rousing himself with wonderful energy from the prostration into which my story had thrown him. "I will send after her. She shall be brought back. Ho! Baldwin! Martin!" he cried loudly. "Send Baldwin hither! Be quick there!"