"I will--I will! At this moment I seem to you an unmitigated scoundrel, but things will be different. ... We shall settle in America. I will help her with her work. We'll work together. I'd give my life for her ... I _will_ give it! I'll make amends..." He stood still, waiting as if there were still more to be said. "My uncle will be angry, but it is his doing. If it had not been for him, we should have been married years ago. He shouldn't blame me for what he has brought about. His is the blame. If I see him--_when_ I see him--can I say anything from you?" "Tell him," said Pixie clearly, "that I am grateful to him. _His is the praise_!" CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. HONOR'S LETTER. Bridgie _was_ angry. It was rarely indeed that her placid nature was roused to wrath, but she did the thing thoroughly when she was about it. In a flow of eloquence, worthy of Esmeralda herself, she revived incidents in Pixie's life, dating from babyhood onwards, to prove to the chairs and tables, and any odd pieces of furniture which might happen to be listening, the blameless and beautiful character of the maid who had even been spurned ("spurned" was the word used) by a recreant unworthy the name of scoundrel. She dived into the past, and pictured the feelings of those past and gone; she projected herself into the future, and bequeathed a Corsican legacy of revenge. She lavished blame on Joan, Geoffrey, herself, Jack and Sylvia, Pat and Miles, even the beloved Dick himself, and refused to hear a word in Honor's defence. The only person who came unscathed through the ordeal was Stephen Glynn, whom, it would appear, had absorbed in himself the wisdom which every one else had so shamefully lacked. When Bridgie ended Pat began. The news had had an unexpected effect, in rousing the invalid and restoring him to a feeling of health more powerfully than a hundred tonics could have done. For the first time for weeks past he forgot himself and his woes, and behold a new man, with a strength and vitality astounding to witness. Pat announced his intention of sallying forth and thrashing the beggar forthwith; he dealt bitterly with the squeamishness of the English law with regard to duels, declared in the same breath that he could never have believed in the possibility of such behaviour, and that he had prophesied it from the first. He adjured Pixie repeatedly, and with unction, to "Buck up!" and when the poor girl protested valiantly that she _was_ bucking, immediately adjured her to be honest, for pity's sake, and "let herself go!"