In the midst of his frantic anxiety, it was suddenly revealed to Roderick that in alluding to Sylvester's marriage he had touched the man's hidden wound. He hastened to repair his blunder.
“I am not pleading for myself alone,” he said, drawing himself up and speaking in a more dignified voice. “You can disgrace me, but my disgrace will fall on another—whom your father loves. If you arrest me, the marriage will be broken off by a miserable, horrible scandal,—one that will poison a woman's whole existence. It would be more than pain to your father if such hurt happened to Ella Defries.”
“You certainly don't propose that I should let this marriage take place to-morrow?” said Sylvester, recovering his cold scorn of manner. But he was somewhat checked in his purpose by Roderick's argument, and Roderick saw that he had gained a point.
“I happen to know,” said he, “that you would be carrying out your father's wish in preventing my marriage. I undertake to break it off. The day I marry her you can arrest me.”
Again Sylvester laughed harshly. “You know very well you would be safe then, as Ella Defries's husband.”
He turned and walked to the window and looked out in deep thought. He hated the man, clung fiercely to the revengeful joy of seeing him stamped out of decent existence. Compromise was wormwood, and yet compromise there must be. Roderick remained by the door straining haggard eyes at his judge, a strange figure, with his gorgeous dressing-gown and dishevelled hair, in the midst of the dismantled and rubbish-strewn room. Sylvester's last words had sent the thrill of a forlorn hope through his veins and he waited with throbbing heart for the other to speak.
At last Sylvester faced him again.
“I will give you a day's grace,” he said stonily. “You will leave Liverpool Street tonight at 8.30 for the Hook of Holland; one way of getting to the Continent is as good as another, and I happen to choose this one. You can take what steps you like to inform Miss Defries that you cannot marry her tomorrow or any other time. Those are my terms. I shall have a warrant ready. If you shuffle out of them, I shall put it in force and proceed against you without mercy.”
“Mercilessness is a dangerous game when a creature is driven to bay,” said Roderick.
“What could you do?” asked Sylvester, contemptuously.