He was moving toward the door with his characteristic slow step.

“If your friend Morgan, or any one else, should shoot me, or if I should tumble into the lake, or otherwise end my earthly career—Bates!”

His eyes had slipped from mine to the window and I spoke his name sharply.

“Yes, Mr. Glenarm.”

“Then Sister Theresa’s niece would get this property and everything else that belonged to Mr. Glenarm.”

“That’s my understanding of the matter, sir.”

“Morgan, the caretaker, has tried to kill me twice since I came here. He fired at me through the window the night I came, Bates!”

I waited for his eyes to meet mine again. His hands opened and shut several times, and alarm and fear convulsed his face for a moment.

“Bates, I’m trying my best to think well of you; but I want you to understand”—I smote the table with my clenched hand—“that if these women, or your employer, Mr. Pickering, or that damned hound, Morgan, or you— damn you, I don’t know who or what you are!—think you can scare me away from here, you’ve waked up the wrong man, and I’ll tell you another thing,—and you may repeat it to your school-teachers and to Mr. Pickering, who pays you, and to Morgan, whom somebody has hired to kill me,—that I’m going to keep faith with my dead grandfather, and that when I’ve spent my year here and done what that old man wished me to do, I’ll give them this house and every acre of ground and every damned dollar the estate carries with it. And now one other thing! I suppose there’s a sheriff or some kind of a constable with jurisdiction over this place, and I could have the whole lot of you put into jail for conspiracy, but I’m going to stand out against you alone,—do you understand me, you hypocrite, you stupid, slinking spy? Answer me, quick, before I throw you out of the room!”

I had worked myself into a great passion and fairly roared my challenge, pounding the table in my rage.

“Yes, sir; I quite understand you, sir. But I’m afraid, sir—”

“Of course you’re afraid!” I shouted, enraged anew by his halting speech. “You have every reason in the world to be afraid. You’ve probably heard that I’m a bad lot and a worthless adventurer; but you can tell Sister Theresa or Pickering or anybody you please that I’m ten times as bad as I’ve ever been painted. Now clear out of here!”