“_I_ know it! I know nothing about it. But before we carry this controversy further, let me give you a hint: drop this haughty tone you have just taken with me,--it won't do,--I tell you it won't. If you 're the Lord Viscount to the world, you know deuced well what you are to me, and what, if you push me to it, I could make you to _them_.” “Captain Davis, I am inclined to think that we had better come to an understanding at once,” said Beecher, with a degree of firmness he could rarely assume. “Our relations cannot be what they have hitherto been. I will no longer submit to dictation nor control at your hands. Our roads in life lie in opposite directions; we need seldom to meet, never to cross each other. If Lady Lackington accepts the same view of these matters as myself, well; if not, it will not be difficult to suggest an arrangement satisfactory to each of us.” “And so you think to come the noble Lord over me, do you?” said Grog, with an irony perfectly savage in look and tone. “I always knew you were a fool, but that you could carry your stupid folly that far I never imagined. You want to tell me--if you had the pluck you would tell me--that you are ashamed of having married _my_ daughter, and I tell _you_ that out of your whole worthless, wretched, unmanly life, it is the one sole redeeming action. That _she_ stooped to marry _you_ is another matter,--she that, at this very moment, confers more honor upon your rank than it can ever bestow upon _her!_ Ay! start if you will, but don't sneer; for if you do, by the eternal Heaven above us, it will be the last laugh you 'll ever indulge in!” A sudden movement of his hand towards the breast of his coat gave such significance to the words that Beecher sprang from his seat and approached the bell-rope. “Sit down there,--there, in that chair,” cried Grog, in the thickened accents of passion. “I have n't done with you. If you call a servant into the room, I' ll fling _you_ out of the window. If you imagined, when I burned your forged acceptances, that I had n't another evidence against you stronger than all, you mistook Kit Davis. What! did you think to measure yourself against _me?_ Nature never meant you for that, my Lord Viscount,--never!” If Davis was carried away by the impetuosity of his savage temper in all this, anger never disabled him from keenly watching Beecher and scanning every line in his face. To his amazement, therefore, did he remark that he no longer exhibited the same extent of fear he had hitherto done. No, he was calmer and more collected than Grog had ever seen him in a moment of trial. “When your passion has blown over,” said Beecher, quietly, “you will perhaps tell me what it is you want or require of me.”