“Oh, yes,” she said, “I am not going to dispute that, but what then?  I am your wife, and you have committed bigamy; and if you don’t go on paying me I’ll have you in gaol, and that’s all about it, old boy.  You can’t get out of it any way, you nasty mean brute,” she went on, raising her voice and drawing up her thin lips so as to show the white teeth beneath.  “So you thought that you were going to play it down low on me in that fashion, did you?  Well, you’ve just made a little mistake for once in your life, and I’ll tell you what it is, you shall smart for it.  I’ll teach you what it is to leave your lawful wife to starve while you go and live with another woman in luxury.  You can’t help yourself; I can ruin you if I like.  Supposing I go to a magistrate and ask for a warrant?  What can you do to keep me quiet?”

Suddenly the virago stopped as though she were shot, and her fierce countenance froze into an appearance of terror, as well it might.  Mr. Quest, who had been sitting listening to her with his hand over his eyes, had risen, and his face was as the face of a fiend, alight with an intense and quiet fury which seemed to be burning inwardly.  On the mantelpiece lay a sharp-pointed Goorka knife, which one of Mrs. d’Aubigne’s travelled admirers had presented to her.  It was an awful looking weapon, and keen-edged as a razor.  This he had taken up and held in his right hand, and with it he was advancing towards her as she lounged on the sofa.

“If you make a sound I will kill you at once,” he said, speaking in a low and husky voice.

She had been paralysed with terror, for like most bullies, male and female, she was a great coward, but the sound of his voice roused her.  The first note of a harsh screech had already issued from her lips, when he sprang upon her, and placing the sharp point of the knife against her throat, pricked her with it.  “Be quiet,” he said, “or you are a dead woman.”

She stopped screaming and lay there, her face twitching, and her eyes bright with terror.

“Now listen,” he said, in the same husky voice.  “You incarnate fiend, you asked me just now how I could keep you quiet.  I will tell you; I can keep you quiet by running this knife up to the hilt in your throat,” and once more he pricked her with its point.  “It would be murder,” he went on, “but I do not care for that.  You and others between you have not made my life so pleasant for me that I am especially anxious to preserve it.  Now, listen.  I will give you the two hundred and fifty pounds that I have brought, and you shall have the two hundred and fifty a year.  But if you ever again attempt to extort more, or if you molest me either by spreading stories against my character or by means of legal prosecution, or in any other way, I swear by the Almighty that I will murder you.  I may have to kill myself afterwards—­I don’t care if I do, provided I kill you first.  Do you understand me? you tiger, as you call yourself.  If I have to hunt you down, as they do tigers, I will come up with you at last and kill you.  You have driven me to it, and, by heaven!  I will!  Come, speak up, and tell me that you understand, or I may change my mind and do it now,” and once more he touched her with the knife.