A smile of triumph lit the dark features of the hybrid.
"Something _you_ could not give her, but _I_ could!--Julia Dudley came for a favour to _me_!"
Glenning, white hot, drew two steps nearer, though still holding himself in check.
"We can talk without the use of names. What favour did she want?"
"She came to ask me to have the bank dividend declared, or they would starve!"
"That was no favour. The money is Major Dudley's. You have stolen it from them by withholding it. She came to demand her own, and her own was denied her, no need to tell me that."
Marston thought of the price he had put upon the dividend, and, while he longed to goad and torture his enemy to the utmost, he feared to tell him of that part of their conversation.
"No, she didn't get it!" he answered, roughly.
Little as he liked the command, Marston centered his ever shifting eyes upon Glenning's. But they would not stay, despite his will.
"You've been to Jericho," went on the even voice. "You came back last night. What did you go for?"
"What in hell do you mean?" he flared out, with a bluster. "I went on business."
This time Marston coloured perceptibly, and shrugged his shoulders. He did not answer.
"See here!" resumed Glenning. "I know why you went to Jericho. Now listen. If you begin spreading lies about me in this community you shall suffer. Tell the truth--the whole truth--and I'll not say a word. But you don't know the whole truth, nor any part of it. You didn't go to get the truth, but all the low, indecent scandal and gossip you could scrape together. Usually that side is not as hard to get as the other. It is not my fault that we have been enemies from the night I came to Macon. I would not have you for a friend, believe me, but we might at least have been civil. You've heard a great deal of stuff while you were away that your informants wouldn't repeat to my face. And I tell you they are all lies! Did you voice any of them to Miss--to her?"
Again Marston felt the truth dragged from him. But a sardonic smile of malicious pleasure spread over his face as he answered--
"I told her a little about my trip, and how a certain friend of hers had another sweetheart back up there, but she broke away before I could tell her all--"