“I have told you twice, sir, that I do not know any thing about it.  I beg you will not insult me with more questions.  You have no right to do so; I am neither in your service nor Mr. Livingstone’s now.”

Mohun bent his bushy brows in some perplexity.  After all, he had not a shadow of proof, though he felt a moral certainty.  His sheet-anchor was the avarice of the scoundrel he was dealing with, and this seemed to fail.  Evidently a strong counter-influence had been at work.

“Curse her!” he muttered between his clenched teeth, “she has been here before me.”

Then he looked up suddenly, and what he saw caused the shallow cup of his patience at once to overflow.

In Willis’s eyes was an ill-repressed twinkle of exultation and amusement, and on his thin lips the dawning of an actual sneer.  It was but seldom the trained satellite allowed himself the luxury of betraying any natural feeling.  In truth, he chose his time badly for its exhibition now.  Before he could collect himself so as to utter a cry, he lay upon his back on the carpet, a heavy foot on his chest; and the colonel was gazing down on him with a fell murderous expression, that made the victim’s blood run cold.

“By G—­d!” Mohun said, in the smothered tones of concentrated passion, “if you trifle with me ten seconds longer—­if you open your lips except to answer my question, I’ll crush your breast-bone in.”

Willis knew the desperate character of the man who held him in his power; it was no vain threat he had just heard; the pressure on his chest was agonizing already.

“For God’s sake don’t murder me!” he gasped out; “I—­I gave it to Miss Bellasys.”

“Of course you did,” Mohun said, coolly; “I knew it all along.  Now get up, and write that down.”

He spurned away the fallen man as he spoke till he rolled over and over on the floor.

There is nothing which disconcerts a nature long used to obey like a sudden brutal coup de main.  Remember the Scythians and their slaves.  The rebels met their masters boldly enough on a fair field with sword and spear, but they cowered before the crack of the horsewhips.

All the spider-webs of the unfortunate Willis’s diplomacy were utterly swept away; his powers of thought and volition were concentrated now on one point—­to get rid of his visitor as soon as possible.

He rose slowly and painfully (for the mere physical shock had been heavy), and, placing himself at a table, tried to write the few words of acknowledgment that Mohun dictated; but his hand trembled so excessively that he could hardly form the letters.  As he looked up in piteous deprecation, evidently fearing lest his inability to comply should be construed into unwillingness or rebellion, he presented a spectacle of degraded humanity so revolting in its abasement that even the cynic turned away in painful disgust.

It was done at last.  As Willis saw his confession consigned to Mohun’s pocket-book, his avarice gave him courage to try one last effort to gain something by the transaction—­a salve to his bruises—­a set-off against the relicta non bene parmula.