"Where have you been?" exclaimed the Curate; "answer me truly--I can't submit to any evasion. I know it all, Wodehouse. Where is she? where have you hid her? If you do not give her up, I must give you up to justice. Do you hear me? where is Rosa Elsworthy? This is a matter that touches my honour, and I must know the truth."
Mr Wentworth was so full of the subject that it did not occur to him how much time he was giving his antagonist to prepare his answer. Though Wodehouse was not clever, he had the instinct of a baited animal driven to bay; and resistance and denial came natural to a man who had been accused and condemned all his life.
"Rosa Elsworthy?" said the vagabond, "what have I to do with Rosa Elsworthy? A pretty man I should be to run away with a girl; all that I have in the world is a shilling or two, and, by Jove, it's an expensive business, that is. You should ask your brother," he continued, giving a furtive glance at the Curate--"it's more in his way, by Jove, than mine."
Mr Wentworth was recalled to himself by this reply. "Where is she?" he said, sternly,--"no trifling. I did not ask if you had taken her away. I ask, where is she?" He had shut the door behind him, and stood in the middle of the room facing Wodehouse, and overawing him by his superior stature, force, and virtue. Before the Curate's look the eyes of the other fell; but he had fallen by chance on a reasonable defence enough, and so long as he held by that felt himself tolerably safe.
"I don't know anything about her," he repeated; "how should I know anything about her? I aint a fool, by Jove, whatever I may be: a man may talk to a pretty girl without any harm. I mayn't be as good as a parson, but, by Jove, I aint a fool," he muttered through his beard. He had begun to speak with a kind of sulky self-confidence; but his voice sunk lower as he proceeded. Jack Wentworth's elegant levity was a terrible failure in the hands of the coarser rascal. He fell back by degrees upon the only natural quality which enabled him to offer any resistance. "By Jove, I aint an idiot," he repeated with dull obstinacy, and upon that statement made a stand in his dogged, argumentative way.
"Would you like it better if I said you were a villain?" asked the exasperated Curate. "I don't want to discuss your character with you. Where is Rosa Elsworthy? She is scarcely more than a child," said Mr Wentworth, "and a fool, if you like. But where is she? I warn you that unless you tell me you shall have no more assistance from me."