find you," he gritted
out.

"On your information?"

"On mine and Mr. Stair's."

"Ye lie!" shrieked the miser. "I tell't ye to keep hands off, ye
bletherin' little deevil, ye!"

"Never mind," said I; "what's done is done. But it must be undone, and
that swiftly and thoroughly. Lie out of it to Colonel Tarleton and the
others as you will; Captain John Stuart and the baronet are not here to
contradict you, and you are the only witnesses. Knock together some
story that will hold water and lose no time about it. Do you
understand?"

Seeing he was not to be put to the wall and spitted on the spot, the
lawyer recovered himself.

"'Tis not the criminal at the bar who dictates terms, Captain Ireton,"
he said, with his hateful smirk. "You are under sentence of death, and
that by a court lawful enough in war time."

"You refuse?" I said.

He shrugged.

"Speaking for myself, I shall leave no stone unturned to bring you to
book, Captain,--when it suits my purpose."

I was loath to go to extremities with either of them; but my bridge of
glass must be defended at all hazards.

"You would best reconsider, Mr. Pengarvin. At this present moment I am
of my Lord Cornwallis's military family and I have his confidence. A
word from me will put you both in arrest as persons whose loyalty in
times past has been somewhat more than blown upon."

"Bah!" said the pettifogger. "Bluster is a good dog, but Holdfast is the
better. You can prove nothing, as you well know. Moreover, with your own
neck in a noose you dare not mess and meddle with other men's affairs."

"Dare not, you say? I'll tell you what I may dare, Master Attorney. If
you are not disposed to meet me half way in this matter, I shall go to
my Lord, tell him how I have been cheated out of my estate, declare the
marriage with Mistress Margery, and see that you get your just deserts.
And you may rest assured that this soldier-earl will right me, come what
may."

'Twas a bold stroke, the boldest of any I had made that morning; but I
was wholly unprepared for its effect upon the lawyer. His rage was like
that of some venomous little animal, a thing to make an onlooker shudder
and draw back.

"Never!" he hissed; "never, I say! I'll kill her first--I'll--" He
choked in the very exuberance of his malignance, and his face was like
the face of a man in a fit.

'Twas then that I saw the pointing of his villainy and knew what Margery
had meant when she said that for reasons o