"You blackguard! Where's my sister?"

At this extraordinary remark the world rocked about George dizzily.
The words upset his entire diagnosis of the situation. Until that
moment he had looked upon this man as a Lothario, a pursuer of
damsels. That the other could possibly have any right on his side
had never occurred to him. He felt unmanned by the shock. It seemed
to cut the ground from under his feet.

"Your sister!"

"You heard what I said. Where is she?"

George was still endeavouring to adjust his scattered faculties.
He felt foolish and apologetic. He had imagined himself unassailably
in the right, and it now appeared that he was in the wrong.

For a moment he was about to become conciliatory. Then the
recollection of the girl's panic and her hints at some trouble
which threatened her--presumably through the medium of this man,
brother or no brother--checked him. He did not know what it was all
about, but the one thing that did stand out clearly in the welter
of confused happenings was the girl's need for his assistance.
Whatever might be the rights of the case, he was her accomplice,
and must behave as such.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

The young man shook a large, gloved fist in his face.