this duty must be done, ere he could comfortably travel the westward route he had so long desired. All over the He was slowly buttoning his pilot-coat, when he heard a heavy step upon the flagged passage. Many such steps had 79 been up and down it that hour, but none with the same fateful sound. He turned his face anxiously to the door, and as he did so, it was flung open, as if by an angry man, and William Anneys walked in, frowning and handling his big walking-stick with a subdued passion that filled the room as if it had been suddenly charged with electricity. The two men looked steadily at each other, neither of them flinching, neither of them betraying by the movement of an eyelash the emotion that sent the blood to their faces and the wrath to their eyes. 79 “William Anneys! What do you want?” “I want you to set your wedding-day. It must not be later than the fifteenth of this month.” “Suppose I refuse to do so? I am going to Italy for my father’s body.” “You shall not leave England until you marry my sister.” “Suppose I refuse to do so?” “Then you will have to take your 80 chances of life or death. You will give me satisfaction first; and if you escape the fate you well deserve, Brune may have better fortune.” 80 “Duelling is now murder, sir, unless we pass over to France.” “I will not go to France. Wrestling is not murder, and we both know there is a ‘throw’ to kill; and I will ‘throw’ until I do kill,—or am killed. There’s Brune after me.” “I have ceased to love your sister. I dare say she has forgotten me. Why do you insist on our marriage? Is it that she may be Lady Fenwick?” “Look you, sir! I care nothing for lordships or ladyships; such things are matterless to me. But your desertion has set wicked suspicions loose about Miss Anneys; and the woman they dare to think her, you shall make your wife. By God in heaven, I swear it!”
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