Avondale permitted his eye-glass to fall from its accustomed place, and started to arise. "Ah, really, sir," said he, "I must be going. It is getting so late, I--"
"Remain where you are, sir!" said the captain, in deep, resolute tones. There was an iron ring in his voice that startled the Englishman. "Late as it may be," the captain went on, "you have been in this room less than fifteen minutes. Subterfuges are unavailing."
Lucy Osborn raised her queenly head, and, with one resentful glance at the old captain, hissed, "Spying on your wife is hardly in keeping with the dignity of a financier."
"I have surrendered dignity, Lucy, in the hope of saving you," replied the captain, calmly.
Her eyes flashed an angry glance at him. "What do you mean?" she stammered. "I don't quite--" She broke off in silence, as her eyes met his sorrowful and yet scornful glance. There was something in the searching gaze of her husband that seemed to read the very secrets of her soul. It stung her proud heart with remorse.
Turning to Avondale, the captain said: "I ought to have killed you long ago, before this liaison with Mrs. Osborn began. I should have shot you to death like some vile cur, d---- you, and would have done so but for my little son."
"I beg your pardon, sir," said Avondale, now thoroughly alarmed. "Really, sir, you are mis-tak--"
"Stop!" cried the captain, fiercely, "do not add to your dastardly crimes by lying. I know all. Give me the letter--the one which Mrs. Osborn wrote you this afternoon--in which she promised to give you some money."
Lord Avondale seemed to shrivel up before the captain's emphatic demand. He nervously fumbled the letter from his pocket. The captain unceremoniously took possession of it.
"Really, sir," stammered Avondale, "I am only a man, not a saint, you know, and these improprieties with Mrs. Osborn can hardly be considered as any fault of mine." Mrs. Osborn turned toward her paramour, and a look of disgust flitted across her face. It began to dawn upon her that he was an arrant coward.
"Adam attempted to lay the blame on the woman in the Garden of Eden," shouted the captain, in anger. "You, perhaps, are a gentleman by birth, but you are an infernal wretch by practice. Titled you may be, but at heart you are betrayer of the virtue of a weak woman. The nobility at your hands is a prostituted aristocracy; your admiration and attentions are an insult to all good women. Return to the shores whence you came, you contemptible scoundrel, and never again set foot on free America's soil. Your mission was one of adventure and fortune-hunting. Release that noble girl, Ethel Horton, from the promise of marriage which you and your coterie of damnable conspirators have forced and inveigled her into making, or, by the Eternal, your bones shall bleach in Dead Man's Hollow! Will you do this?"