you
make the breach between me and my friend irreparable?"

Both his hands were on her wrists in the vain endeavour to disengage
himself from her frenzied grip; the door was flung open and Rupert
Landale stood in the opening, and looked in upon them.

"Damnation!" muttered Jack between his teeth and flung her from him,
stamping his foot.

Rupert gazed from one to the other; from the woman, who, haggard and
dishevelled, now turned like a fury upon him, to the sailor's fierce
erect figure. Then he closed the door with an air of grave
deliberation.

"What do you want?" demanded Molly--"you have come here for no good
purpose. What do you want?"

As she spoke she strove to place herself between the two men.

"I came, my dear sister-in-law," said Rupert in his coldest, most
incisive voice, "to learn why, since you have come back from your
little trip, you choose to remain in the ruins rather than return to
your own house and family. The reason is clear to see now. My poor
brother!"

The revulsion of disappointment had added to the wrath which the very
sight of Rupert Landale aroused in Jack Smith's blood; this
insinuation was the culminating injury. He took a step forward.

"Have a care, sir," he exclaimed, "how you outrage in my presence the
wife of my best friend! Have a care--I am not in such a hurry to leave
you as when last we met!"

Mr. Landale raised his eyebrows, and again sent a look from Molly back
to the sailor, the insolence of which lashed beyond all control the
devils in the sailor's soul.

"We have an account to settle, it seems to me, Mr. Landale," said he,
taking another step forward and slightly stooping his head to look the
other in the eye. Crimson fury was in his own. "I doubt much whether
it was quite wise of you, assuming that you expected to find me here,
to have come without that pistolling retinue with which you provided
yourself last time."

Rupert smiled and crossed his arms. Cowardice was no part of his
character. He had come in advance of his blood-hounds, in part to
assure himself of the correctness of his surmises, but also to feast
upon the discomfiture of this man and this woman whom he hated. To
have found them together, and thus, had been an unforeseen and
delicious addition to his dish of vengeance, and he would linger over
it while he could.

"Well, Captain Smith, and about this account? Lady Landale, I beg of
you, be silent. You have brought sufficient disgrace upon our