to your insolence and intrusion. You will leave this room instantly. If
you have any further demands upon me, I will hear them to-night at any
hour you please to appoint."

"No, no, my fine fellow," said Thornton, with a coarse chuckle; "you have
as much wit as three folks, two fools, and a madman; but you won't do me,
for all that. The instant my back is turned, your's will be turned too;
and by the time I call again, your honour will be half way to Calais.
But--bless my stars, Mr. Pelham, is that you? I really did not see you
before; I suppose you are not in the secret?"

"I have no secrets from Mr. Pelham," said Glanville; "nor do I care if
you discuss the whole of your nefarious transactions with me in his
presence. Since you doubt my word, it is beneath my dignity to vindicate
it, and your business can as well be dispatched now, as hereafter. You
have heard rightly, that I intend leaving England to-morrow; and now,
Sir, what is your will?"

"By G--d, Sir Reginald Glanville!" exclaimed Thornton, who seemed stung
to the quick by Glanville's contemptuous coldness, "you shall not leave
England without my leave. Ay, you may frown, but I say you shall not;
nay, you shall not budge a foot from this very room unless I cry, 'Be it
so!'"

Glanville could no longer restrain himself. He would have sprung towards
Thornton, but I seized and arrested him. I read, in the malignant and
incensed countenance of his persecutor, all the danger to which a single
imprudence would have exposed him, and I trembled for his safety.

I whispered, as I forced him again to his seat, "Leave me alone to settle