Part 11 (1/2)

Landon laughed again.

”Does that touch you?” he cried. ”He wouldn't tell you that. Not of how he schemed, and laid traps, and sunk pitfalls for me, to catch me, as I was caught. I'm no saint, Lord knows, but I've never sunk to that. I've had my game and paid my price, but, by G.o.d, I've never cheated!”

Aylmer's eyes still met his with level contempt.

”I know Despard, I've known him since boyhood,” he answered. ”He does not do these things.”

Landon shrugged his shoulders.

”Of course! I'm down and you're all stamping me into the mud, lower and lower. You've all taken the accepted view, and when I cry out against it I'm told I've had my chance. So I did, but it was never a fair one.”

”You have still six months in which to give your version to the King's Proctor if you have any new facts to support your statement,” said Aylmer, coldly.

”Facts! How am I to get the benefit of facts when the other side can manufacture answers for them with a dollar for my every penny? I've supplied 'facts' to the King's Proctor till I'm sick of the sight of his office paper a.s.suring me that he has 'no evidence to justify my contentions.' I can give facts enough. It's a hearing I want--an impartial hearing!”

Aylmer shook his head.

”You got it,” he said doggedly. ”You got it!”

Landon rapped his stick upon the pavement.

”I tell you I didn't!” he cried. ”I tell you that I could tell you things that would prove to you--yes, prove--that the whole job was got up by that scoundrel who's just left us--got up by him to steal my wife from me. I ask you to hear me; I appeal to you to listen to my side; I appeal to your sense of justice!”

Aylmer turned up the street.

”If you think there is anything to be gained by it, say on!” he answered. ”You can walk with me as far as my quarters.”

”You won't ask me in?” sneered Landon. ”That's more than I can expect.”

”Some of the fellows might look in on me--decent fellows,” explained Aylmer, drily.

Landon gave a little gasp, halted, and leaned suddenly against the wall.

He looked up at his cousin. His lips worked, he stammered, he broke into a panting storm of sobs.

”I didn't deserve that! My G.o.d! I didn't deserve that!” he cried.

Aylmer looked down at him and a tiny thrill of compunction shot through him. He hesitated. He did not believe in Landon's protestations. He knew, in every instinct of his nature, that Landon was a scoundrel. But he began to remember that it had not always been so. Things that had brought them together as boys came back to him. His memory suddenly framed a picture of that wedding nine years ago. Landon had gone to meet his bride gallantly, adoringly, that day. He had loved her then. Yes, he could not have acted that, he had loved her then.

And Landon, watching narrowly his cousin's face, read the emotions as they chased each other across it as if they had been writ upon an open page. He hugged himself mentally.

”That's what knocks him!” he told himself triumphantly. ”The abased ingenuous sinner! A little more of that and, Great Nicholas! I have him by the short hairs!”

He pulled himself together with a well-acted effort. He turned and drew back.

”You cur!” he cried. ”You cur, to hit at a man who's down!”

Aylmer's tanned cheek showed through it a tiny flush. The dart had gone home.

”When you prove that an apology's due, I'll make it.”

”In the street!” sneered Landon. ”I'm to shout my wrongs, tell you all the intimate story of my provocation before the town. Thank you for nothing!”