well; very well. I'll take care to make the truth known by letter
to Dr. Wortle and the Bishop and all them pious swells over there. To
think that such a chap as you, a minister of the gospel, living with
another man's wife and looking as though butter wouldn't melt in your
mouth! I tell you what; I've got a little money in my pocket now, and I
don't mind going over to England again and explaining the whole truth to
the Bishop myself. I could make him understand how that photograph ain't
worth nothing, and how I explained to you myself as the lady's righteous
husband is all alive, keeping house on his own property down in Louisiana.
Do you think we Lefroys hadn't any place beside Kilbrack among us?"

"Certainly you are a liar," said Peacocke.

"Very well. Prove it."

"Did you not tell me that your brother was buried at San Francisco?"

"Oh, as for that, that don't matter. It don't count for much whether I
told a crammer or not. That picter counts for nothing. It ain't my word
you were going on as evidence. You is able to prove that Ferdy Lefroy was
buried at 'Frisco. True enough. I buried him. I can prove that. And I
would never have treated you this way, and not have said a word as to how
the dead man was only a cousin, if you'd treated me civil over there in
England. But you didn't."

"I am going to treat you worse now," said Peacocke, looking him in the
face.

"What are you going to do now? It's I that have the revolver this time."
As he said this he turned the weapon round in his hand.

"I don't want to shoot you,--nor yet to frighten you, as I did in the
bed-room at Leavenworth. Not but what I have a pistol too." And he slowly
drew his out of his pocket. At this moment two men sauntered in and took
their places in the further corner of the room. "I don't think there is
to be any shooting between us."

"There may," said Lefroy.

"The police would have you."

"So they would--for a time. What does that matter to me? Isn't a fellow
to protect himself when a fellow like you comes to him armed?"

"But they would soon know that you are the swindler who escaped from San
Francisco eighteen months ago. Do you think it wouldn't be found out that
it was you who paid for the shares in forged notes?"

"I never did. That's one of your lies."

"Very well. Now you know what I know; and you had better tell me over
again who it is that lies buried under the stone that's been photographed
there.