"Neither in your absence nor in your presence."

"As to the latter you may do as you please. And now, touching my
sister-in-law, I will simply recommend you to look after your own
affairs."

"I shall look after what affairs I please."

"Of Lady Ongar and her life since her marriage I dare say you know as
little as anybody in the world, and I do not: suppose it likely that you
will learn much from her. She made a fool of you once, and it is on the
cards that she may do so again."

"You said just now that you would brook no interference in your affairs.
Neither will I."

"I don't know that you have any affairs in which any one can interfere.
I have been given to understand that you are engaged to marry that young
lady whom your mother brought here one day to dinner. If that be so, I
do not see how you can reconcile it to yourself to become the champion,
as you called it, of Lady Ongar."

"I never said anything of the kind."

"Yes, you did."

"No; it was you who asked me whether I was her champion."

"And you said you were."

"So far as to defend her name when I heard it traduced by you."

"By heavens, your impudence is beautiful. Who knows her best, do you
think--you or I? Whose sister-in-law is she? You have told me I was
cruel to her. Now to that I will not submit, and I require you to
apologize to me."

"I have no apology to make, and nothing to retract."

"Then I shall tell your father of your gross misconduct, and shall warn
him that you have made it necessary for me to turn his son out of my
house. You are an impertinent, overbearing puppy, and if your name were
not the same as my own, I would tell the grooms to horsewhip you off the
place."

"Which order, you know, the grooms would not obey. They would a deal
sooner horsewhip you. Sometimes I think they will, when I hear you speak
to them."

"Now go!"

"Of course I shall go. What would keep me here?"

Sir Hugh then opened the door, and Harry passed through it, not without
a cautious look over his shoulder, so that he might be on his guard if
any violence were contemplated. But Hugh knew better than that, and
allowed his cousin to walk out of the room, and out of the house,
unmolested.

And this had happened on the day of the funeral! Harry Clavering had
quarrelled thus with the father within a few hours of the moment in
which they two had stood together over the grave of that father's only
child! As he thought of this while he walked acros