"But I saw your face very plainly as you lay on your back, sir, by the aid of a Postilion's lanthorn, and was greatly struck by our mutual resemblance." Sir Maurice raised his glass and looked at me, and, as he looked, smiled, but he could not hide the sudden, passionate quiver of his thin nostrils, or the gleam of the eyes beneath their languid lids. He rose slowly and paced to the door; when he came back again, he was laughing softly, but still he could not hide the quiver of his nostrils, or the gleam of the eyes beneath their languid lids. "So—it was—you?" he murmured, with a pause between the words. "Oh, was ever anything so damnably contrary! To think that I should hunt her into your very arms! To think that of all men in the world it should be you to play the squire of dames!" And he laughed again, but, as he did so, the stout riding-whip snapped in his hands like a straw. He glanced down at the broken pieces, and from them to me. "You see, I am rather strong in the hands, cousin," said he, shaking his head, "but I was not—quite strong enough, last time we met, though, to be sure, as you say, it was very dark. Had I known it was worthy Cousin Peter's throat I grasped, I think I might have squeezed it just—a little—tighter." "Sir," said I, shaking my head, "I really don't think you could have done it." "Yes," he sighed, tossing his broken whip into a corner. "Yes, I think so—you see, I mistook you for merely an interfering country bumpkin—" "Yes," I nodded, "while I, on the other hand, took you for a fine gentleman nobly intent on the ruin of an unfortunate, friendless girl, whose poverty would seem to make her an easy victim—" "In which it appears you were as much mistaken as I, Cousin Peter." Here he glanced at me with a sudden keenness. "Indeed?" "Why, surely," said he, "surely you must know—" He paused to flick a speck of soot from his knee, and then continued: "Did she tell you nothing of—herself?" "Very little beside her name." "Ah! she told you her name, then?" "Yes, she told me her name." "Well, cousin?" "Well, sir?" We had both risen, and now fronted each other across the anvil, Sir Maurice debonair and smiling, while I stood frowning and gloomy. "Come," said I at last, "let us understand each other once for all. You tell me that you have always looked upon me as your rival for our uncle's good graces—I never was. You have deceived yourself into believing that because I was his ward that alone augmented my chances of becoming the heir; it never did. He saw me as seldom as possible, and, if he ever troubled his head about either of us, it would seem that he favored you. I tell you I never was your rival in the past, and never shall be in the future." "Meaning, cousin?"