“I am prepared for any allegation you may make against me,” responded George. “You may ruin me—you may do what you and your friends will—but you shall never marry Mary Morini!”
“I defy you!”
“Very well—we shall see.”
“Tell the Minister what you choose, but remember that if you endeavour to create friction between us, I will show you no mercy,” he cried between his teeth. “Until now I have been silent, but—”
“You’ve been silent because you know too well that you fear to speak—you fear to make any allegations against me. I know rather too much!” declared the Englishman, with confidence.
“Much or little, it does not concern me in the least,” replied the foreigner. “You create unpleasantness, and eh bien! I do the same.”
“Then you actually intend that that desperate woman, in deadly fear of her father’s ruin, shall become your wife?”
“I do.”
“Then I tell you, Dubard,” he cried, “that I will not allow it! I will never allow it. I will tell the truth, and bear the consequences.”
“The consequences!” exclaimed the Frenchman in a deep, serious voice, his teeth hard set in anger which he strove to suppress, but which nevertheless rose by reason of his quick foreign nature. “The consequences! Have you realised them all? You seem to have a short memory, my dear friend—and a short memory is often convenient. Shall I refresh it for you?” he asked, as the man before him clutched at the wooden rail of the stile for support, although striving valiantly to preserve a defiant calm. “Shall I recall to you the memory of those sunny winter days when your employer Morgan-Mason took you with him to the Villa Puget at Mentone, when he was the guest of his brother-in-law, General Felix Sazarac? Shall—”