Rage is shrewd of inspiration. He remembered the one blow that he could deal this man; and he struck it, hoping that it might sink far deeper than the smarting surface-wounds that now made his own body ache. "Devil--coward--garotter!" he screamed out. "You that hit old men in the dark--listen to me!" Waite stopped. "If you want any more, you can have it," he answered. "But don't go telling lies around the country and saying I did anything you didn't well deserve. You struck me first, and if you are mad enough to strike your betters, then you'll find they will strike back." "I'll strike--yes, I'll strike--don't fear that. I'll strike--a harder blow than your evil hand knows how. I'll strike with truth--and that's a weapon goes deeper than your bully's stick. Hear me, and hear a bit about your young lady--'young lady'! A woman without a father--a child got--ax her mother where and how--and then go to blazing hell--you and your nameless female both. I know--I know--and I'll tell you if you want to know. She's Nathan Baskerville's bastard--that's what your 'young lady' is! There's gall for yours. There's stroke for stroke! And see which of us smarts longest now!" Jack took his bruises homeward and the other, dazed at such a storm, also went his way. He scoffed at such malice and put this evil thing behind him. He hastened forward, as one hastens from sudden incidence of a foul smell. But the wounded man had sped a poison more pestilential far than any born of physical cause. The germ thus despatched grew while Waite slept; and with morning light its dimensions were increased. Under the moon, he had laughed at this furious assault, and scorned it as the vile imagining of a beaten creature; but with daylight he laughed no longer. The barb was fast; other rumours set floating after the innkeeper's death now hurtled like lesser arrows into his bosom; and Mr. Waite felt that until a drastic operation was performed and these wounds cleansed, his peace of mind would not return. He debated between the propriety of speaking to Cora about her father, or to Mrs. Lintern on the subject of her husband; and he decided that the latter course would be more proper. CHAPTER IX Susan Hacker and her master sat together in the kitchen. He had lighted his pipe; she was clearing away the remains of a somewhat scanty meal, and she was grumbling loudly as she did so. "Leave it," he cried at length, "or I won't show you the christening mug for Milly's baby. It have come from Plymouth, and a rare, fine, glittering thing it is." "I won't leave it," she answered. "You can't see the end of this, but I can. People know you've got plenty of money, but they don't know the way you're fooling it about, and presently, when you go and get ill, and your bones begin to stick through your skin, 'tis I shall be blamed."