"And yet, we have met before," said I, "and the circumstances
were then even more dramatic, perhaps,--we met in a tempest, sir."
"Ha!" he exclaimed, dwelling on the word, and speaking very
slowly, "a tempest, cousin?"
"There was much wind and rain, and it was very dark."
"Dark, cousin?"
"But I saw your face very plainly as you lay on your back, sir,
by the aid of a Postilion's lanthorn, and was greatly struck by
our mutual resemblance." Sir Maurice raised his glass and looked
at me, and, as he looked, smiled, but he could not hide the
sudden, passionate quiver of his thin nostrils, or the gleam of
the eyes beneath their languid lids. He rose slowly and paced to
the door; when he came back again, he was laughing softly, but
still he could not hide the quiver of his nostrils, or the gleam
of the eyes beneath their languid lids.
"So--it was--you?" he murmured, with a pause between the words.
"Oh, was ever anything so damnably contrary! To think that I
should hunt her into your very arms! To think that of all men in
the world it should be you to play the squire of dames!" And he
laughed again, but, as he did so, the stout riding-whip snapped
in his hands like a straw. He glanced down at the broken pieces,
and from them to me. "You see, I am rather strong in the hands,
cousin," said he, shaking his head, "but I was not--quite strong
enough, last time we met, though, to be sure, as you say, it was
very dark. Had I known it was worthy Cousin Peter's throat I
grasped, I think I might have squeezed it just--a little--tighter."
"Sir," said I, shaking my head, "I really don't think you could
have done it."
"Yes," he sighed, tossing his broken whip into a corner. "Yes, I
think so--you see, I mistook you for merely an interfering
country bumpkin--"
"Yes," I nodded, "while I, on the other hand, took you for a fine
gentleman nobly intent on the ruin of an unfortunate, friendless
girl, whose poverty would seem to make her an easy victim--"
"In which it appears you were as much mistaken as I, Cousin
Peter." Here he glanced at me with a sudden keenness.
"Indeed?"
"Why, surely," said he, "surely you must know--" He paused to
flick a speck of soot from his knee, and then continued: "Did she
tell you nothing of--herself?"