You'll find candour avail you best in this case,
depend upon it. Your daughter has inherited a fortune, and you want to
put your hand upon it altogether. It would be wiser to moderate your
desires, and be content with a fair share of the inheritance. Your
daughter is not the woman to treat you ungenerously, nor am I the man to
create any hindrance to her generosity."
"I can make no bargain with you, sir," replied Mr. Nowell, with the same
cool audacity of manner that had distinguished him throughout the
interview; "nor am I prepared to admit your claim to the position you
assume. But if my daughter is your wife, she left you of her own free
will, under no coercion of mine; and she must return to you in the same
manner, or you must put the machinery of the law in force to compel her.
And _that_, I flatter myself, in a free country like America, will be
rather a difficult business."
It was hard for John Saltram to hear any man talk like this, and not be
able to knock him down. But in his present condition Marian's husband
could not have grappled a child, and he knew it.
"You are an outrageous scoundrel!" he said between his set teeth,
tortured by that most ardent desire to dash his clenched fist into Mr.
Nowell's handsome dissolute-looking face. "You are a most consummate
villain, and you know it!"
"Hard words mean so little," returned Mr.
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