"Then the facts are these," the man of feeling went on, with an undercurrent of malicious triumph in his musical voice. "Kelmscott is NOT his father's eldest son; he's NOT, and never was, the heir of Tilgate. More than that, nobody knows these facts but myself. And I know the true heirs, and I can prove their title. Well, now, Miss Gildersleeve--if it's to be Miss Gildersleeve still--this is the circumstance that alters the case as regards Granville Kelmscott. I have it in my hands to ruin Kelmscott. And what I've taken the trouble to come down and say to you to-day is simply this for your own advantage; beware, at least, how you throw yourself away upon a penniless man, with neither name nor fortune! When you've quite got over that dream, you'll be glad to return to the man you threw overboard for the rich squire's son. No circumstances have ever altered him. He loved you from the first, and he will always love you."
Gwendoline looked him back in the face again, as pale as death. "Mr. Nevitt," she said scornfully, unmoved by his tale, "I do not love you, and I will never love you. You have no right to say such things to me as this. I'm glad you've told me, for I now know what Mr. Kelmscott meant. And if he was as poor as a church mouse, I'd marry him to-morrow--I said just now I didn't mean to marry him. I retract that word. Circumstances alter cases, and what you've just told me alters this one. I withdraw what I said. I'll marry Granville Kelmscott to-morrow if he asks me."
She looked down at him so proudly, so defiantly, so haughtily, that Montague Nevitt, sitting there with his cynical smile on his thin red lips, flinched and wavered before her. He saw in a moment the game was up. He had played the wrong card; he had mistaken his woman and tried false tactics. It was too late now to retreat. An empty revenge was all that remained to him. "Very well," he said sullenly, looking her back in the face with a nasty scowl--for indeed he loved that girl and was loath to lose her--"remember your promise, and say nothing to anybody. You'll find it best so for your own reputation in the end. But mark my words; be sure I won't spare Granville Kelmscott now. I'll play my own game. I'll ruin him ruthlessly. He's in my power, I tell you, and I'll crush him under my heel. Well, that's settled at last. I'm off to Devonshire to-morrow--on the hunt of the records--to the skirts of Dartmoor, to a place in the wilds by the name of Mambury." He raised his hat, and, curling his lip maliciously, walked away, without even so much as shaking hands with her. He knew it was all up. That game was lost. And, being a man of feeling, he regretted it bitterly.