The sight of the old man’s anguish almost drove Stafford mad.

“Have you no mercy, sir?” he said to Falconer.  “Grant that my father had injured you—­isn’t this rather too awful a revenge to exact?  I—­I—­I—­don’t understand all that I have heard; but—­but”—­an oath broke from his hot lips—­“will nothing less than the ruin of my father satisfy you?”

Falconer looked from one to the other and moistened his lips, while his hands gripped each other behind his back.

“I think you have misunderstood me,” he said, in a dry, harsh voice; “I have no intention of ruining your father or of depriving him of his good name.  Mind! if I did I should only be taking my pound of flesh:  and I may tell you that before I entered this house this afternoon I had resolved to have it.  But I heard something that induced me to change my mind.”

Sir Stephen leant forward, his eyes fixed eagerly on the speaker, and Stafford in his anxiety held his breath and pressed his father’s shoulder encouragingly.

“You heard something, sir?” Stafford asked, as calmly as he could.

Mr. Falconer was silent for a moment, then he said: 

“Yes.  I heard that you were desirous of marrying my daughter, Maude, Mr. Orme; and I need not say that a man does not ruin his son-in-law!”

There was an intense silence.  Stafford stood as if he were turned to stone, as if he were trying to persuade himself that he had misunderstood the meaning of Falconer’s words.  Marry Maude Falconer—­he!  Was he dreaming, or was this man, who stood regarding him with cold, glittering eyes, mad!

CHAPTER XXII.

We do not, nowadays, strike attitudes, or ejaculate and swear when we are startled or shocked; Stafford stood perfectly still, still as a piece of Stonehenge, and gazed with an expressionless countenance at Mr. Falconer.  That the man was indeed and in truth mad, occurred to him for a moment; then he thought there must be some mistake, that Mr. Falconer had made a blunder in the name, and that it was a case of mistaking his man.

But as the moments fled, and the two elder men gazed at him, as if expecting him to speak, he remembered Howard’s warning.  The colour rushed to his face and his eyes dropped.  Merciful Heaven! was the man speaking the truth when he said that he, Stafford, was in love with Maude Falconer?  His face was hot and scarlet for a moment, then it grew pale under the shame of the thought that he should have to correct the impression; decline, so to speak, the implied honour.

Sir Stephen was the first to speak.  He had sunk back in his chair, but was now leaning forward again, his hands gripping the table.  “Stafford!” he said, still thickly, but with the beginning of a note of relief in his voice.  “I did not know this—­you did not tell me!”

Stafford turned to him helplessly.  What could he say—­before Falconer, the girl’s father?