I don't think I said anything in reply; indeed, I am quite sure I did not say a syllable; but I must have made some expressive gesture, or suffered some exclamation to escape me, for he quickly rejoined,-- "Yes, sir, you have, indeed, reason to be thankful; for had it been my wretched, miserable, and injured friend instead, you would now be lying weltering in your blood." "Might I make bold to ask the name of the wretched, miserable, and injured gentleman to whom I was about to be so much indebted?" "The husband of your unhappy victim, sir," exclaimed he, and with such an energy of voice that I brandished the poker to show I was ready for him. "Yes, sir, Mr. Gore Hampton is now in this village,--to a mere accident you owe it that he is not in this hotel,--ay, in this very room." [Illustration: 342] And he gave a shudder at the words, as though the thoughts they suggested were enough to curdle a man's blood. "I'll tell you what, my Lord," said I, getting the table between us, to prevent any sudden attack on his part, "all your anger and high-down indignation are clean thrown away. There is no victim here at all,--there is no villain; and, so far as I am concerned, your friend is not either miserable or injured. The circumstances under which I accompanied that lady to this place are all easy of explanation, and such as require a very different acknowledgment from what you seem disposed to make for them." "If you think you are dealing with a schoolboy, sir, you are somewhat mistaken," broke he in. "I am a man of the world, and it will save us a deal of time, sir, if you will please to bear this plain fact in your memory." "You may be that, or anything else you like, my Lord," said I; "but I 'd have you to know that I am a man well respected in the world, the father of a grown-up family. There is no occasion for that heavy groan at all, my Lord; the case is not what you suspect. I came here purely out of friendship--" "Come, come, sir, this is sheer trifling; or, it is worse,--it is outrageous insult. The man who elopes with a woman, passes under a false name, retires with her into one of the most remote and unvisited towns of Germany, is discovered--as I lately discovered you,--only insults the understanding of him who listens to such excuses. We have tracked you, sir,--it is but fair to tell you,--from the Rhine to this village. We are prepared, when the proper time comes, to bring a host of evidence against you. In all probability, a more scandalous case has not come before the public these last twenty years. Rest assured, then, that denial, no matter how well sustained, will avail you little; and when you have arrived at this palpable conviction, it will greatly facilitate our progress towards the termination of this unhappy business." "Well, my Lord, let us suppose, for argument's sake,--'without prejudice,' however, as the attorneys say,--that I see everything with your eyes, what is the nature of the termination you allude to?"