In truth, General Beckford was exciting himself. His voice vibrated harshly; one could see the immense effort required to keep it at its low pitch. He stared and glared, shook his shaggy hair, and looked altogether like some grey old lion who had been brought to bay in a cruel hunt, and was ready to spring upon his closest tormentors.
“All right, Ridsdale. But help me, don’t preach to me. There, I swear I’ll do nothing without thought. I have thought. I have thought it all out. Bring me face to face with my enemy. I answer for the rest. Now, who is he? We don’t know so many people, she and I. Help me to run over their names, or, better still, use your brains on my behalf. She has been more or less under your observation lately. You must have seen her comings and goings—the people she was in touch with. Have you observed anything suspicious?”
“No; nothing whatever.”
“Some too attentive visitor?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t matter.” The General shook his grey mane and paced to and fro. “I’ll find him unassisted,” and he stopped abruptly. “Ridsdale, so surely as I stand here, I’ll find that man, and compel him to satisfy me.”
Ridsdale drew out the cambric handkerchief and passed it across his forehead. Then he laughed lightly. “General, please forgive me for laughing. But really when any one is so carried away by excitement—well, you yourself will laugh to-morrow when you remember the wild things you have said in your excitement.”
“You think that the fellow perhaps isn’t a gentleman, and that he may try to refuse?”
“I think that, whether he is a gentleman or not, he will certainly refuse to break the law of the land at your bidding.”
“Yes; but I’m prepared.” And the General smiled grimly, and spoke with a kind of sly triumph. “I shall ignore his refusal. I shall put a pistol into his hand and make him fight.”