'Am I so far favoured by fortune as to have your pity?
Infinitely obliged, my cousin Anne! But these sentiments are not always reciprocal, and I warn you that the day when I set my foot on your neck, the spine shall break.

Are you acquainted with the properties of the spine ?' he asked with an insolence beyond qualification.
It was too much.

'I am acquainted also with the properties of a pair of pistols,' said I, toising him.
'No, no, no!' says he, holding up his finger.

'I will take my revenge how and when I please.

We are enough of the same family to understand each other, perhaps; and the reason why I have not had you arrested on your arrival, why I had not a picket of soldiers in the first clump of evergreens, to await and prevent your coming--I, who knew all, before whom that pettifogger, Romaine, has been conspiring in broad daylight to supplant me--is simply this: that I had not made up my mind how I was to take my revenge.' At that moment he was interrupted by the tolling of a bell.