It was in this mood that his persecutor met him. It was when all the venomous rancor that a long subjection had bred in his haughty nature, was roused to its utmost, that the interview for which Dr. Hugh had schemed, and planned, and lied, took place. Cold and cunning, plausible and imperturbable, he met a man with whose keenest feelings he had been playing for years, and who was even then lacerated to madness by insults and indignities that would have roused a tamer nature. Some fiend was blinding his eyes surely, and lulling him into security, that he did not feel a warning throb of fear as he rode into the lonely hollow, and through the dusky twilight discerned the waiting form of him he had wronged so deeply. Some luring devil put into his mouth the cold and sneering words with which he greeted him--the fool-hardy and contemptuous bravado with which he taunted him. Beyond any length he had ever gone before, he now dared, claiming his power over him, defying him to disdain it, and threatening him with instant exposure if he dared leave America. And when Victor, driven to desperation, and quivering with passion, turned fiercely upon him and defied him to do it--from this hour he cared not whether it was known or not, the cunning fiend in the wretch's bosom prompted him to ask if he had grown tired of his pretty mistress so soon, that he gave her up so easily? Or did he flatter himself that the haughty girl, at whose feet he had been so long, would continue her hardly-won smiles when she knew him for a nameless, low-born adventurer, hiding the stain of his birth at the cost of his honor? "You may tell it! You may proclaim it the length and breadth of the land! Who will believe you, low villain and known knave as you are, against the word and credit of a gentleman? Who will believe your paltry version of the delirium of a fever, that none but you heard--none but you interpreted? They will ask you for proofs--what then?" "I will give them proofs. I will tell them more than you know yourself of the story of your birth, and prove it by more damning proofs than you have dreamed existed. You doubt me? You defy and mock the threat? Listen! At this moment I hold that about me that would prove the tale I tell to be as true as heaven, and would send you branded to lower depths of shame than you have ever known. I hold it but till you shall dare to thwart me, till you shall dare to set a foot on foreign shores, and then the world--the woman that you love--the friends you trust--your gloating enemies--shall have the story, and shall see its proof!"