"I told you I was afraid of this," continued Dacres. "I had a suspicion that she was alive, and I firmly believe she'll outlive me forty years; but I must say I never expected to see her in this way, under such circumstances. And then to find her so infernally beautiful! Confound her! she don't look over twenty-five. How the mischief does she manage it? Oh, she's a deep one! But perhaps she's changed. She seems so calm, and came into the room so gently, and looked at me so steadily. Not a tremor, not a shake, as I live. Calm, Sir; cool as steel, and hard too. She looked away, and then looked back. They were searching glances, too, as though they read me through and through. Well, there was no occasion for that. She ought to know Scone Dacres well enough, I swear. Cool! And there stood I, with the blood flashing to my head, and throbbing fire underneath the scar of her wound--hers--her own property, for she made it! That was the woman that kicked me, that struck at me, that caused the destruction of my ancestral house, that drove me to exile, and that now drives me back from my love. But, by Heaven! it'll take more than her to do it; and I'll show her again, as I showed her once before, that Scone Dacres is her master. And, by Jove! she'll find that it'll take more than herself to keep me away from Minnie Fay." "See here, old boy," said Hawbury, "you may as well throw up the sponge." "I won't," said Dacres, gruffly. "You see it isn't your wife that you have to consider, but the girl; and do you think the girl or her friends would have a married man paying his attentions in that quarter? Would you have the face to do it under your own wife's eye? By Jove!" The undeniable truth of this assertion was felt by Dacres even in his rage. But the very fact that it was unanswerable, and that he was helpless, only served to deepen and intensify his rage. Yet he said nothing; it was only in his face and manner that his rage was manifested. He appeared almost to suffocate under the rush of fierce, contending passions; big distended veins swelled out in his forehead, which was also drawn far down in a gloomy frown; his breath came thick and fast, and his hands were clenched tight together. Hawbury watched him in silence as before, feeling all the time the impossibility of saying any thing that could be of any use whatever.