I saw his drift at last, and, not caring to spare him, sped the shaft of
truth and let it find the joint in his harness.

"'Tis as you say, Mr. Stair. But as it chances, Mistress Margery is not
my wife."

If I had flung the candle at him where he stood fumbling behind him for
the door-latch,'twould not have made him shrink or dodge the more.

"Wha--what's that ye say?" he piped in shrillest cadence. "Not married?
Then you--you--"

"I lied to save her honor--that was all. A wife might do the thing she
did and go scot free of any scandal; but not a maid, as you could see
and hear."

For some brief time it smote him speechless, and in the depth of his
astoundment he forgot his foolish fear of me and fell to pacing up and
down, though always with the table cannily between us. And as he
shuffled back and forth the thin lips muttered foolish nothings, with
here and there a tremulous oath. When all was done he dropped into a
chair and stared across at me with leaden eyes; and truly he had the
look of one struck with a mortal sickness.

"I think--I think you owe me something now beyond your keeping, Captain
Ireton," he quavered, at length, mumbling the words as do the palsied.

"Since you are Margery's father, I owe you anything a dying man can
pay," said I.