“I do; but in your account of them you lie!”

There was a sternness inflexible as steel in the brief sentence.  Under it for an instant, though not visibly, Baroni flinched; and a fear of the man he accused smote him, more deep, more keen than that with which the sweeping might of the Seraph’s fury had moved him.  He knew now why Ben Davis had hated with so deadly a hatred the latent strength that slept under the Quietist languor and nonchalance of “the d——­d Guards’ swell.”

What he felt, however, did not escape him by the slightest sign.

“As a matter of course you deny it!” he said, with a polite wave of his hand.  “Quite right; you are not required to criminate yourself.  I wish sincerely we were not compelled to criminate you.”

The Seraph’s grand, rolling voice broke in; he had stood chafing, chained, panting in agonies of passion and of misery.

“M.  Baroni!” he said hotly, the furious vehemence of his anger and his bewilderment obscuring in him all memory of either law or fact, “you have heard his signature and your statements alike denied once for all by Mr. Cecil.  Your document is a libel and a conspiracy, like your charge; it is false, and you are swindling; it is an outrage, and you are a scoundrel; you have schemed this infamy for the sake of extortion; not a sovereign will you obtain through it.  Were the accusation you dare to make true, I am the only one whom it can concern, since it is my name which is involved.  Were it true—­could it possibly be true—­I should forbid any steps to be taken in it; I should desire it ended once and forever.  It shall be so now, by God!”

He scarcely knew what he was saying; yet what he did say, utterly as it defied all checks of law or circumstance, had so gallant a ring, had so kingly a wrath, that it awed and impressed even Baroni in the instant of its utterance.

“They say that those fine gentlemen fight like a thousand lions when they are once roused,” he thought.  “I can believe it.”

“My lord,” he said softly, “you have called me by many epithets, and menaced me with many threats since I have entered this chamber; it is not a wise thing to do with a man who knows the law.  However, I can allow for the heat of your excitement.  As regards the rest of your speech, you will permit me to say that its wildness of language is only equaled by the utter irrationality of your deductions and your absolute ignorance of all legalities.  Were you alone concerned and alone the discoverer of this fraud, you could prosecute or not as you please; but we are subjects of its imposition, ours is the money that he has obtained by that forgery, and we shall in consequence open the prosecution.”

“Prosecution?” The echo rang in an absolute agony from his hearer; he had thought of it as, at its worst, only a question between himself and Cecil.

The accused gave no sigh, the rigidity and composure he had sustained throughout did not change; but at the Seraph’s accent the hunted and pathetic misery which had once before gleamed in his eyes came there again; he held his comrade in a loyal and exceeding love.  He would have let all the world stone him, but he could not have borne that his friend should cast even a look of contempt.