It was the Duke who stood up now, scarlet with anger.  He sprang from his chair as if he had been a young man in whom some insult had struck blazing fire.

“You—­you dare!” he shouted.  “You insolent blackguard!  You force your way in here and dare—­dare——!” And he clenched his fist, wildly shaking it.

Nigel Anstruthers, staggering on his uncertain feet, would have shouted also, but could not, though he tried, and he heard his own voice come forth brokenly.

“Yes, I dare!  I—­your—­my own—­my——!”

Swaying and tottering, he swung round to the chair he had left, and fell into it, even while the old Duke, who stood raging before him, started back in outraged amazement.  What was the fellow doing?  Was he making faces at him?  The drawn malignant mouth and muscles suggested it.  Was he a lunatic, indeed?  But the sense of disgusted outrage changed all at once to horror, as, with a countenance still more hideously livid and twisted, his visitor slid helplessly from his seat and lay a huddling heap of clothes on the floor.

CHAPTER L

THE PRIMEVAL THING

When Mr. Vanderpoel landed in England his wife was with him.  This quiet-faced woman, who was known to be on her way to join her daughter in England, was much discussed, envied, and glanced at, when she promenaded the deck with her husband, or sat in her chair softly wrapped in wonderful furs.  Gradually, during the past months, she had been told certain modified truths connected with her elder daughter’s marriage.  They had been painful truths, but had been so softened and expurgated of their worst features that it had been possible to bear them, when one realised that they did not, at least, mean that Rosy had forgotten or ceased to love her mother and father, or wish to visit her home.  The steady clearness of foresight and readiness of resource which were often spoken of as being specially characteristic of Reuben S. Vanderpoel, were all required, and employed with great tenderness, in the management of this situation.  As little as it was possible that his wife should know, was the utmost she must hear and be hurt by.  Unless ensuing events compelled further revelations, the rest of it should be kept from her.  As further protection, her husband had frankly asked her to content herself with a degree of limited information.

“I have meant all our lives, Annie, to keep from you the unpleasant things a woman need not be troubled with,” he had said.  “I promised myself I would when you were a girl.  I knew you would face things, if I needed your help, but you were a gentle little soul, like Rosy, and I never intended that you should bear what was useless.  Anstruthers was a blackguard, and girls of all nations have married blackguards before.  When you have Rosy safe at home, and know nothing can hurt her again, you both may feel you would like to talk it over.