"The woman said that you weren't in. I said I'd wait. I knew you'd come. She fidgeted. So I stepped behind the curtains. I thought trouble might be saved." "It was very thoughtful, Mr. Haines, of you, indeed." Mr. Haines moved away from the curtains. He came farther into the room, his hand still in the neighbourhood of his pistol pocket, his eyes never wandering from Mr. Townsend's face. "Last night I reckoned with your brother." "My brother?" "He says he is your brother. He let it out as I was laying into him. And he's about your style all over. He calls himself Stewart Trevannion, and he's a thief, but not near such a thief as you." "Is that so? May I inquire, Mr. Haines, what I have done that you should say I am a thief?" "You've stole my girl." "Your girl?" Mr. Townsend raised his eyebrows slightly, but still sufficiently for the movement to be perceptible. "Are you alluding to Mrs. Carruth?" "Mrs. Carruth? No, young man, I am not alluding, as you call it, to Mrs. Carruth." "I thought that Mrs. Carruth could hardly be adequately described as a girl." "Is it sneering at Mrs. Carruth you are?" Mr. Haines's idiom, on the sudden, became flavoured with, as it were, a reminiscence of Ireland. "I trust that I never, Mr. Haines, shall be guilty of so heinous a crime as sneering at a lady. I believe that I am merely asserting a fact in venturing to express an opinion that Mrs. Carruth can hardly be adequately described as a girl." Mr. Townsend's exaggeration of courtesy, suggesting more than it expressed, seemed to be something for which Mr. Haines was unprepared. He hesitated, as if in doubt; then repeated his previous assertion. "You've stole my girl, and I've come to call you to account." "I am unconscious of having conveyed from you any property of the kind. Of whom are you speaking as your girl?" "My Loo." "Your----" Mr. Townsend obviously started, regaining his self-possession only after a momentary pause. "I am still, Mr. Haines, so unfortunate as to be unable to follow you." "Whether she was known to you as Louisa Haines, or Louise O'Donnel, or Milly Carroll, she was my girl. You stole her. You killed her. I am here to kill you for it." There was silence. The two men eyed each other. Mr. Haines with that sullen, dogged look upon his face which it was used to wear; Mr. Townsend with the natural expression of the man who has just been told a sudden startling, wholly unexpected piece of news. He seemed to find it so startling a piece of news as to be almost incredible. "Is it possible, Mr. Haines, that the lady whom I knew as Louise O'Donnel was your child?" [Illustration: "'Remove your hand, Sir!'" _Page_ 339] "She was: my only child--my one ewe lamb. You took her life. What have you to say why I shouldn't have your life for hers?"