shift. Not, however, before I had found deep down in them the beginnings
of fear. "You see, you were mistaken," said I. "You have nothing to say to
me--or I to you."

He knew I had looked straight to the bottom of his real self, and had seen
the coward that is in every man who has been bred to appearances only. Up
rose his vanity, the coward's substitute for courage.

"You think I am afraid of you?" he sneered, bluffing and blustering like
the school bully.

"I don't in the least care whether you are or not," replied I. "What are
you doing here, anyhow?"

It was as if I had thrown off the cover of a furnace. "I came to get the
woman I love," he cried. "You stole her from me! You tricked me! But, by
God, Blacklock, I'll never pause until I get her back and punish you!"
He was brave enough now, drunk with the fumes from his brave words. "All
my life," he raged arrogantly on, "I've had whatever I wanted. I've let
nothing interfere--nothing and nobody. I've been too forbearing with
you--first, because I knew she could never care for you, and, then, because
I rather admired your pluck and impudence. I like to see fellows kick their
way up among us from the common people."

I put my hand on his shoulder. No doubt the fiend that rose within me, as
from the dead, looked at him from my eyes. He has great physical strength,
but he winced under that weight and grip, and across his face flitted the
terror that must come to any man at first sense of being in the angry
clutch of one stronger than he. I slowly released him--I had tested and
realized my physical superiority; to use it would be cheap and cowardly.

"You can't provoke me to descend to your level," said I, with the easy
philosophy of him who clearly has the better of the argument.

He was shaking from head to foot, not with terror, but with impotent rage.
How much we owe to accident! The mere accident of my physical superiority
had put him at hopeless disadvantage; had made him feel inferior to me as
no victory of mental or moral superiority could possibly have done. And I
myself felt a greater contempt for him than the discovery of his treachery
and his shallowness had together inspired.

"I shan't indulge in flapdoodle," I went on. "I'll be frank. A year ago, if
any man had faced me with a claim upon a woman who was married to me, I'd
probably have dealt with him as your vanity and what you call 'honor' would
force you to try to deal with a similar situation. But