“I’ll tell you,” said Bartley—­“by coming here to tempt, provoke, and insult the wretch whose soul you destroyed, by forcing me to assassinate the best man and the sweetest girl in England, when there were vipers and villains about whom it’s a good action to sweep off God’s earth.  Villain!  I’ll teach you to come like a fool and madden a madman.  I was only a rogue, you have made me a man of blood.  All the worse for you.  I have murdered them, I’ll execute you,” and with these words he bounded on him like a panther.

Monckton tore the doors open, and dashed out, but a furious blow fell before he was quite clear of the doorway.  With such force was it delivered that the blunt metal cut into the edge of the door like a sword; the jamb was smashed, and even Monckton, who received but one-fourth of the blow, fell upon his hands and knees into the hall and was stunned for a moment, but fearing worse, staggered out of the hall door, which, luckily for him, was open, and darting into a little grove of shrubs, that was close by, grovelled there in silence, bleeding like a pig, and waiting for his chance to escape entirely; but the quaking reptile ran no further risk.

Bartley never followed him beyond his own room; he had been goaded into a maniacal impulse, and he returned to his gloomy sullenness.

* * * * *

Walter’s declaration, made so suddenly before four persons, startled them greatly for a moment—­but only for a moment.  Julia was the first to speak.

“We might have known it,” she said, “Mary Bartley is a young lady incapable of misconduct; she is prudence, virtue, delicacy, and purity in person; the man she was with at that place was sure to be her husband, and who should that be but Walter, whom she loved?”

Then the servants looked anxiously at their master to see how he took this startling revelation.  Well, the Colonel stood firm as if he was at the head of a column in the field.  He was not the man to retreat from any position, he said, “All we have to do is to save her; then my house and arms are open to my son’s wife.”

“God bless you, father!” cried Walter, in a broken voice; “and God bless you, dear cousin.  Yes, it’s no time for words.”  And he was gone in a moment.

“Now Milton,” said the Colonel, “he won’t sleep here till the work is done, and he won’t sleep at all if we don’t get a bed for him near the mine.  You order the break out, and go to the Dun Cow and do what you can for him.”

“That I will, sir; I’ll take his own sheets and bedding with me.  I won’t trust that woman—­she talks too much; and, if you please, sir, I’ll stay there a day or two myself, for maybe I shall coax him to eat a morsel of my cooking, and to lie down a bit, when he would not listen to a stranger.”

“You’re a faithful creature,” said the Colonel, rather aggressively, not choosing to break down, “so are you, John; and it is at these moments we find out our friends in the house; and, confound you, I forbid you both to snivel,” said he, still louder.  Then, more gravely, “How do we know? many a stormy day ends well; this calamity may bring happiness and peace to a divided house.”